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A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

NEW YORK ■ BOSTON • CHICAGO • DALLAS 
ATLANTA ■ SAN FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN & CO., Limited 

LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 

THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd. 

TORONTO 



A HISTORY 



OF 



THE UNITED STATES 



BY 
JOHN P. O'HARA 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
1919 

All rights reserved 



r//? 



cy j^ 



Copyright, 1919^ 
By the MACMILLAN COMPANY. 

Set up and electrotyped. Published July, 1919. 



NotfaooO ^rfSB 

J. S. Gushing Co. — Berwick & Smith Co. 

Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. 



JUL 23 1919 ©Cl*53»»»' 



PREFACE 

This volume aims to present the story of American history 
in a form which will engage the interest of pupils in the upper 
grades of the elementary schools. It will be found that a 
considerable amount of material of traditional interest, but 
of small intrinsic importance, has been omitted in order 
that a fuller emphasis might be placed on events and move- 
ments of greater significance. Following the best teaching 
opinion, the volume deals constantly with the causal rela- 
tions of historical events, due regard being had for the 
capacity of the pupils who will use the book. The wealth 
of illustrations and the many excellent maps with which 
the publishers have enriched the volume greatly enhance 
its value for school use. 

In the preparation of this book the author has received 
assistance from many sources, but special acknowledgment 
is due to Miss Anastasia Doyle of the Humboldt High 
School, St. Paul, Minnesota, who has prepared the questions 
on the text and the other aids to study ; to Professor Frank 
O'Hara of the Catholic University of America, and Linda 
Maley O'Hara, who have read the entire manuscript and 
suggested many valuable improvements ; to the author's 
former associates in the department of history in the Uni- 
versity of Oregon, Professor Joseph Schafer and Professor 
R. Carlton Clark, each of whom read portions of the manu- 
script and gave generously of special knowledge, and to 
Reverend Edwin V. O'Hara, superintendent of schools for 
the Archdiocese of Oregon City, who at various stages of 
the work offered valuable suggestions. 

V 



SUGGESTIONS TO TEACHERS 

The Study Questions at the end of each chapter are in- 
tended to aid the pupil in the preparation of his lesson ; 
occasional questions have been formulated so as to stimu- 
late independent thinking on his part. To facilitate a test 
of the pupil's understanding of what he reads there has been 
placed at the end of each chapter a vocabulary containing 
words of the text which are likely to be new to many of the 
children. The enlargement of the pupil's vocabulary should 
be a normal result of efficient history teaching. Sugges- 
tive map exercises are offered and it is urged that a great 
deal of map work be done. The study of geography should 
be correlated with the study of history : opportunity should 
be taken to point out the influence of climate, soil, river, and 
mountain on the life of the people. There is no reason why 
the geography lesson in the history class should not be as 
well done as in the geography class. 

Every teacher will want to have his class do some outside 
reading. The wide diversity of school equipment makes it 
difficult to offer a program of collateral reading, but for the 
teacher whose library is lacking in historical material a 
few brief suggestions may be made : 

The Study of History in the Elementary Schools (Scribners), being a Re- 
port to the American Historical Association by the Committee of 
Eight, outlines a course in American history and suggests suitable 
readings for the teacher and the children. The book otherwise 
contains matter of great value and should be in the hands of every 
teacher of American history. 

vil 



viii SUGGESTIONS TO TEACHERS 

The teacher who has a very Hmited amount of money 
to spend on collateral reading might make a beginning with 
these books : 

Barstow, C. L. (editor) : Century Readings in United States History (Cen- 
tury Co.), six volumes, 50 cents each. An excellent collection cover- 
ing the whole course of American history. 

Elson, H. W. : Side Lights on American History (Macmillan). A series 
of readings covering the period from the Declaration of Independence 
to the Spanish-American War. 

Elson, H. W. : History of the United States of America (Macmillan). 
A large one-volume history of value to the teacher but written in a 
style which most of the pupils will read with interest. 

Scollard, Clinton : Ballads of American Bravery. A collection of patriotic 
verse which may be supplemented by 

The Battle Line of Democracy (Government Printing Office, Washington, 
D. C). 

Johnson, Henry: The Teaching of History (Macmillan). The teacher 
who wishes to grow in his profession will find this book one of the 
very best in the field. 

The History Teacher s Magazine (The McKinley Publishing Company, 
Philadelphia). A mine of useful information for the history teacher. 
Every history teacher should have access to it. 

The Catholic Historical Review, published by the Catholic University, 
Washington, D. C, contains excellent studies in its special field, pub- 
lishes many documents of interest, and has excellent book reviews. 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER 

I. The Discovery and Exploration of America 

II. The American Indians .... 

III. The Early Missionaries 

IV. The English in America 
V. The Southern Colonies 

VI. The New England Colonies 

VII. The Middle Colonies .... 

VIII. Colonial Life 

IX. The Rise and Fall of New France . 

X. The American Revolution . 

XI. The Formation of the Union 

XII. Life at the Close of the Revolution 

XIII. The Federalists in Power . 

XIV. The Jeffersonian Democracy 
XV. The Development of the West . 

XVI. The Jacksonian Period 

XVII. Texas, Oregon, and Mexico 

XVIII. Social and Industrial Changes . 

XIX. The Contest over Slavery . 

XX. The Civil War 

XXI. The South Restored to Southern Control 

XXII. A New Industrial Era .... 

XXIII. Civil Service P eform, the Tariff, and Free Silver 



X CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

XXIV. The United States Becomes a World Power . 369 

XXV. Our Own Times 383 

APPENDIX: 

Declaration of Independence ....... 417 

Constitution of the United States ...... 422 

The Presidents and Vice-Presidents 444 



COLOR MAPS 

PAGE 

North America, showing English, French, and Spanish Possessions 

in America, 1750 ....... facing 108 

North America according to Treaty of 1783 ... " 168 

United States in 1805 " 209 

United States in 1914 . " 388 



BLACK AND WHITE MAPS 

The Chief Trade Routes between Europe and Asia .... 4 

ToscanelH's Map of the World 9 

Line of Demarcation (1494) . . • . . . . -14 

Spanish Explorations ......... 22 

French Explorations ......... 26 

Land Granted to the London and Plymouth Companies ... 49 
Captain John Smith's Map ........ 66 

Plymouth ......... ^ . 69 

Early New England Settlements ....... 72 

Early Settlements in the Connecticut Valley ..... 74 

Region Involved in King Philip's War 77 

French Forts in the West 113 

Acadia, a Part of New France . . . . . . . .114 

Quebec and Vicinity '. . . . . . . . .116 

Bunker Hill and Vicinity ......... 138 

Arnold's Attack on Quebec .140 

Philadelphia and Vicinity ........ 147 

The Expedition of George Rogers Clark 156 

The Field of the Campaigns of Greene and Cornwallis . . .165 
Yorktown ........... 167 

Regions Explored by Lewis and Clark and Zebulon Pike . . . 208 

The Canadian Frontier 217 

si 



xii MAPS 

PAGE 

Washington and Vicinity 222 

Jackson's War in the Southwest ....... 223 

Missouri Compromise ......... 230 

Oregon Country .......... 232 

Field of the Campaigns in the War with Mexico .... 258 

Kansas-Nebraska Territory 284 

The Peninsular Campaign ........ 305 

Battlefield of Chickamauga 315 

Sherman's March to the Sea 317 

The Battlefield of Gettysburg 319 



A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 



A HISTORY OF THE UNITED 
STATES FOR SCHOOLS 



CHAPTER I 
THE DISCOVERY AND EXPLORATION OF AMERICA 

I. Discoveries of the Northmen. — - Men from Norway, 
Northmen, as they are called, were the first Europeans to 
visit America and to leave us a 
record of their coming. These 
daring sailors were at home on 
the sea, and before the days of 
the mariner's compass made long 
voyages in the waters of western 
Europe and on the great ocean. 
As early as 874 a.d. they dis- 
covered Iceland and made settle- 
ments there. 

A little over a hundred years 
after the settlements in Iceland 
were made, Eric the Red, a 
Northman exiled from his home 
in Iceland, founded a colony in 
Greenland. His son, Leif Eric- 
son, while on a visit to Norway, became a Christian and, 
about the year 1000 a.d., set out to carry the Christian 

B I 




A Northman 



2 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

faith to his father's people. But he sailed far to the south 
and, before reaching Greenland, touched the shores of 
America. He found a pleasant land with fields of " wild 
wheat," and such an abundance of grapes that he called 
the country Vinland. His stories of the new land attracted 
others of his countrymen, but no permanent settlements 
were made, and after a few years the Northmen ceased to 
visit America. The scene of Leif's discovery was probably 
in the region now known as Nova Scotia, though some 
believe it was in the present state of Massachusetts. 

It is probable that other Europeans, before the time of 
Columbus, landed on the shores that came to be known as 
America ; but, if so, they had no more influence on the 
history of America than the Northmen themselves. The 
conditions of sea travel were not yet favorable to the explo- 
ration and settlement of our continent. Most of the men 
of the time who were interested in lands outside of Europe 
turned their attention to Asia, but the time was to come 
when the routes of Asiatic travel and commerce would 
be difficult to use and new ones would be sought. It was 
in the search for new ways to reach Asia that Europe found 
America and laid it open to permanent settlement. 

2. Trade Between Europe and Asia. — From very early 
times the people who lived in southern Europe carried on 
an exchange of products with the people of Asia. Toward 
the end of the Middle Ages this trade increased very rapidly. 
Rich cities grew up in Italy, and France, and other lands 
of western Europe, and there was much wealth that could 
be spent on the luxuries of life. 

From the eleventh to the fourteenth century, hundreds 
of thousands of Europeans visited Asia in the great military 
expeditions known as the Crusades, which were undertaken 



THE DISCOVERY AND EXPLORATION OF AMERICA 3 



to free the Holy Land of Palestine from the Turks. For 

two hundred years there was a constant passing back and 

forth of soldiers and pilgrims 

and merchants. Europe and 

Asia became better acquainted 

than ever before. Thousands 

of European merchants settled 

in the cities of Asia, and the 

commerce between the two 

continents became of very 

great importance. 

The chief trade routes at 
this time between Europe and 
Asia were : 

(a) From India by water to 
the Red Sea, then by caravan 
to the Nile and down the 
Nile to the Mediterranean. 

(b) From India by water to the Persian Gulf, then up 
the Tigris-Euphrates Valley and westward through Syria 
to the Mediterranean. 

(c) A long overland route from China passing north of 
the Caspian Sea to Southern Russia and then across the 
Black Sea to Constantinople. 

The woolen goods and some minerals of Europe, such as 
tin, copper, lead, and quicksilver, were much in demand in 
the East and, in return, the people of Asia had a great 
variety of products which were highly valued in Europe. 
India, Ceylon, and the Spice Islands offered pepper, nut- 
meg, cloves, cinnamon, and other spices greatly prized 
by Europeans. We read that for many years the mer- 
chants of Venice bought 420,000 pounds of pepper annually 




A Crusader 



4 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES • ' 

from the Sultan of Egypt, who had received it from the 
East. 

The bringing of spices from the East was a very old cus- 
tom, for, as we are told in the story of Joseph, when his 
brethren had cast him into the pit " they saw some Ish- 
maelites on their way coming from Galaad, with their 




"Wmg.Eng.Co..N.Y. 



The Chief Trade Routes Between Europe and Asia 



camels, carrying spices, and balm, and myrrh to Egypt." 
From China came beautiful silk fabrics and fine porcelain. 
Oriental rugs and tapestries came then, as now, from Per- 
sia, Arabia, and Afghanistan. Diamonds, rubies, and other 
precious stones, drugs, perfumes, dyes, and fragrant woods 
found their way from the East to European markets. It 
will be seen, then, that the trade between Europe and Asia 
was extremely valuable and that its interruption would 
cause heavy losses to many cities like Venice, Genoa, and 



THE DISCOVERY AND EXPLORATION OF AMERICA 5 



Pisa in Italy, Marseilles, and Montpellier in France, and 
Nuremberg, Constance, and Regensburg in Germany, for 
the prosperity of these rich trading centers depended in 
great part on the trade with Asia. 

3. Oriental Trade Disturbed. — A time came when the 
trade with Asia was very greatly disturbed. In the fifteenth 
century the Ottoman Turks, a barbarous people that had 
come from Central Asia, captured Constantinople. This 
city, on account of its position on the narrow waterway 
which separates the Balkan Peninsula from Asia Minor, 
controlled the great trade route from Central Asia to the 
Black Sea to the Mediterranean. The Turks robbed the 
Italian merchants of the city, murdered some, and sold 
others into slavery. Soon they cap- 
tured Smyrna and other rich centers 
of commerce. 

Though the great trade routes by 
way of Syria and of Egypt remained 
open until after the discovery of 
America by Columbus, the cruel wars 
of the Turks had caused great losses 
to the merchants of the Mediterranean 
and there was danger that the whole 
trade would suffer. It was, therefore, 
not strange that men thought of look- 
ing for another way to the East. 

4. Missionaries in the East. — The 
people of Europe were interested in 
the East for other reasons than those 
of business. Missionaries of the Church wished to convert 
the people of the East to Christianity; many Franciscan 
and Dominican priests visited the far East in the thirteenth 




A Franciscan Missionary 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 



and fourteenth centuries. One of the earhest of these was 
John of Piano Carpini, an ItaHan Franciscan, who, about 
the middle of the thirteenth century, spent two years in the 
East and left an interesting account of his travels. A few 
years later William of Rubruck, a Flemish Franciscan, was 
sent by St. Louis, King of France, on a mission to the Mongol 
Emperor of China. In his very full account of his adven- 
tures are found interesting descriptions of China and the 
lands of Central Asia. The success of these and other mis- 
sions was so great that bishops were appointed for Peking 
and other Chinese cities. 

5. Marco Polo. — A well-known traveler of the thirteenth 
century was Marco Polo, who spent many years in the far 

East and became an officer at 
the court of the Emperor of 
China. In 1295 he returned 
to Venice, having spent three 
years in making the long 
voyage by sea along the south- 
ern coasts of Asia. Some 
years later Marco Polo told 
the story of his travels, a story 
that was printed about twenty 
years before Columbus discov- 
ered America and that became 
one of the most widely read books in the world. From 
Polo's book and from the accounts of other travelers, 
the men of Europe learned a great deal about the lands 
from which their spices and precious stones came. They 
found that these lands were washed by the ocean, and 
they began to hope that they could find a way to them 
by the sea. 




Marco Polo 



THE DISCOVERY AND EXPLORATION OF AMERICA 7 

6. The Need of a New Route to the East. — Improve- 
ments in ship-building and the general use of the mariner's 
compass had made it possible for sailors to make long voyages 
on the ocean without danger. So we find that Spain and 
Portugal and other countries that bordered on the Atlantic 
Ocean built many ships and began to take active part in 
the seagoing commerce of the world. They wanted a share 
in the Oriental trade that was maintained on the Mediter- 
ranean Sea and did, in fact, secure some part of it. But the 
Italian merchants, who had entered upon this trade much 
earlier than the Spanish or Portuguese, and had made 
special treaties with the rulers in the eastern Mediterranean, 
were able to keep the most profitable business for them- 
selves. The Portuguese and Spaniards saw that a sea route 
to India and to the Spice Islands and China would be of 
great advantage to them ; and, as we shall see, each of these 
nations took up the work of finding such a route, and each 
was successful. 

7. The Portuguese Lead the Way. — The first people 
to find an all-water route to the East were the Portuguese. 
Prince Henry the Navigator, a member of the ruling family 
of Portugal, spent the greater part of his life in encouraging 
geographical discovery along the coast of Africa. The 
Azores and Madeira Islands were rediscovered and colo- 
nized, while each year new expeditions were sent to the 
South, until, by 1455, the Gulf of Guinea was reached. 

For a time it was thought that the southernmost point 
of Africa had been attained and the way to India opened ; 
but it was not until i486, long after the death of Prince 
Henry, that the Portuguese captain, Bartholomew Diaz, 
sailed past the Cape of Good Hope into the Indian Ocean. 
Here his crew mutinied and he was compelled to return 



8 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 



to Portugal. Twelve years later Vasco da Gama, another 
Portuguese, again passed the Cape and reached Calicut in 
India ; but before this America had been discovered. 

The efforts of the Portuguese 
navigators to reach India had an 
important influence on the dis- 
covery of America. The experi- 
ences of Prince Henry's sailors 
taught people to build better ships 
and to improve the making of maps 
and instruments needed in sailing 
the sea. The Prince and his suc- 
cessors brought together at their 
navigation school skillful seamen 
and mapmakers from other coun- 
tries. Bartholomew Columbus, 
brother of the discoverer of America, was with Diaz on his 
great voyage past the Cape of Good Hope, and Christopher 
Columbus was for a time in the Portuguese service and 
made a voyage to the Guinea coast. 




Prince Henry the 
Navigator 



COLUMBUS FINDS AMERICA 

8. Early Years of Columbus. — Little is known about 
the early life of the discoverer of America. He was born 
in Genoa about the year 1446 and was the son of Domenico 
Colombo, a weaver. As a young man he read many books 
on geography and the art of navigation. He was early 
attracted to the sea and spent some years in the service of 
Portugal, sailing south along the coast of Africa on voyages 
of discovery, and north as far as England and, possibly, to 
Iceland. The men among whom he worked were desirous 



THE DISCOVERY AND EXPLORATION OF AMERICA 9 

of reaching the East Indies by water, and Columbus be- 
came interested in their plans. 

9. The Plan of Columbus. — Columbus, in common with 
the learned men of his day, believed that the earth was 
round. Moreover, the idea that India might be reached by 
sailing westward from Europe was not new. Aristotle, an 
ancient Greek writer with whose opinion Columbus was 
acquainted, had taught that " between the end of Spain and 




ToSCANELLl's MaP OF THE WoRLD 



the beginning of India the sea was small and navigable in a 
few days." We are told by Bishop Las Casas, who was a 
friend of Columbus, that the great navigator received letters 
from the Florentine astronomer, Toscanelli, who said that 
by sailing to the west a shorter way to the Indies would 
be found than by going around Africa. Toscanelli, like 
Aristotle, thought the earth somewhat smaller than it 
really is, and his views may have encouraged the discov- 
erer in planning for his great enterprise. Having convinced 
himself that a westward voyage to India was possible, 



lO 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 



Columbus appealed to the King of Portugal for ships to 
make a trial of his plan. The King thought him nothing 
but a boastful talker and refused his request. 

10. Columbus Appeals to Spain. — Failing to get help 
in Portugal, in 1484 Columbus went to Spain, where for 




From a painting 

Father Juan Perez, a Friend of Queen Isabella, Giving His Blessing 

TO Columbus 

seven years he urged the value of his plan and asked for 
financial aid to make it a success. The King and Queen of 
Spain, Ferdinand and Isabella, w^ere busy driving out the 
Moors from their kingdom. It is easy to understand that 
when, after hundreds of years, the final destruction of the 
Moorish power in Spain seemed assured, the King and 
Queen found it hard to interest themselves in a voyage of 



THE DISCOVERY AND EXPLORATION OF AMERICA ii 

discovery to the other side of the earth. Besides, a com- 
mittee appointed to investigate the plans of Columbus 
reported against them. 

At last Columbus gave up hope of getting aid in Spain 
and started for France. Near the city of Palos he stopped 
at the Franciscan convent of La Rabida for shelter for his 
young son and himself. The prior, Father Juan Perez, a 
friend of Queen Isabella, became interested in his plans and 
undertook to persuade the Queen to give Columbus another 
hearing. Isabella was won over and agreed to find ships 
and men for the voyage to India. 

Columbus was made an admiral of Castile. He was to 
be governor of the lands he should discover and was to re- 
ceive one tenth of the gold and silver he should find. He 
was given letters of introduction to the great rulers of the 
East, whom he hoped to convert to Christianity. Columbus 
thus had three purposes in mind ; viz. : 

1. To find a westward route to India. 

2. To discover new lands. 

3. To extend the Christian religion among heathen 
peoples. 

II. The Great Voyage of Discovery. — Three ships, 
the Santa Maria, the Pinta, and the Nina, were prepared 
at the Queen's command. The Santa Maria only was fully 
decked, and the entire crew of the little fleet did not exceed 
one hundred twenty men. On the morning of August 3, 
1492, Columbus set out from the harbor of Palos. Stopping 
at the Canary Islands to refit one of his vessels, finally, on 
September 6, he started across the Atlantic. On the eve- 
ning of October 11, after a voyage of five weeks, a light was 
seen, and the next morning a landing was made on one of 
the small islands of the Bahama group. The natives called 



12 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 



the island Guanahani, but Columbus renamed it San Sal- 
vador (Holy Savior). 

Some days after finding land he sailed south to Cuba and 
then to Haiti. Here, on Christmas day, the Santa Maria 
was wrecked. The loss of his best ship limited very greatly 
the accommodations of the fleet and determined Columbus 
to establish a settlement of those who were willing to stay. 
Leaving this first Spanish colony of forty-four men in the 




The Three Ships of Columbus 



New World with provisions for a year and seed for sowing, 
Columbus returned to Spain, reaching Palos March 15, 1493. 
News of his return was received with great enthusiasm. 
" From all the neighboring places the people gathered along 
the highway to see him and the Indians and the other novel 
things that he had brought with him," says his son Ferdi- 
nand in describing the discoverer's journey to the court of 
Ferdinand and Isabella. 

12. The Line of Demarcation. — There were some who 
doubted whether the new lands were really .in the region 



THE DISCOVERY AND EXPLORATION OF AMERICA 13 




Columbus Discovers Land 



H 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 



of India. The King of Portugal said that the discoveries 
of Columbus were evidently included in his dominions of 
Guinea. Portugal had secured very extensive rights in 
lands from the Canaries southward. These rights were 
guaranteed by a treaty with Spain and confirmed by the 
Pope, who in those days was constantly appealed to as an 

arbitrator between nations. In the 

interests of peace, Spain appealed 
to Pope Alexander VI, who sus- 
tained the existing rights of Portu- 
gal and protected the new rights of 
Spain. He drew an imaginary line 
from north to south, a hundred 
leagues west of the Cape Verde 
Islands, and decided that east of 
this line Portugal was to retain the 
rights already possessed, while west 
of the line Spain was to have similar 
rights in lands that she discovered. 
Later, by the treaty of 1494, the 
line was drawn three hundred 
Line of Demarcation (1494) seventy leagues west of the Cape 

Verde Islands. 
13. Later Voyages of Columbus. — The King and Queen 
were so well pleased with the reports of the first voyage that 
they readily helped Columbus in preparing for a new ex- 
pedition. Colonies were to be planted in the new lands 
and missionaries were to go out to convert the natives to 
Christianity. Columbus sailed on his second voyage in 
September, 1493. The men he had left in Haiti had perished, 
and a new place on the island was chosen for the second 
venture. The cultivation of the soil and a search for gold 




THE DISCOVERY AND EXPLORATION OF AMERICA 15 

were to be the occupations of the newcomers. Sheep, cows, 
horses, and other domestic animals, as well as many cereals 
and other plants, were introduced into America by the 
settlers who came with Columbus on his second voyage. 
An evil result of the settlement in Haiti was the enslavement 
of Indians, who, in spite of the earnest efforts of the govern- 
ment at home to suppress the practice, were made to work 
for the Spanish settlers. 

Columbus made a third voyage in 1498, on which he 
reached the mainland of South America. But the colony 
in Haiti did not prosper, and there were many complaints 
against the management of Columbus and his brother. A 
royal official, sent out to investigate the complaints, sent 
Columbus to Spain as a prisoner. Though he was at once 
released by Ferdinand and Isabella, he was never again 
given authority over the Spanish settlements. 

The sad home-coming from his third voyage was made 
more bitter by the news that the Portuguese captain, Vasco 
da Gama, had returned from a successful voyage to India 
by way of the Cape of Good Hope. Columbus once more 
determined to prove that the Indies could be reached by 
his plan of sailing westward, and his fourth and last voyage, 
begun in 1502, was undertaken for this purpose. He in- 
tended to devote the profits that came from this voyage to 
the rescue of the Holy Sepulcher at Jerusalem from the in- 
fidels. He reached the mainland of North America in 
Honduras and followed the coast line for over a thousand 
miles until he passed the Isthmus of Panama. He returned 
to Spain in 1504, having suffered shipwreck and many other 
hardships on the voyage. Queen Isabella, who had con- 
stantly remained his friend, died soon after his return. 
He was now worn in body, and as he had no powerful 



i6 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 



friends, his public career was closed. His death occurred 
on May 20, 1506, in the city of Valladolid. 

After the discovery of the great continent to the south 
by Columbus on his third voyage, many attempts were 
made to explore it. Cabral, a Portuguese captain, sailing 
for India, sighted the shores of Brazil in 1500. As this land 
was east of the demarcation line, it became Portuguese 
territory. As a result we find both Spaniards and Portu- 
guese engaged in exploration in South America. 



DISCOVERERS WHO FOLLOWED COLUMBUS 

14. Why America Was So Named. — A Florentine pilot, 
Amerigo Vespucci (or Americus Vespucius, as his name is 

written in Latin), visited South 
America with both Spanish and Por- 
tuguese expeditions. He wrote an 
account of his travels in the New 
World to friends in Italy, in which 
he boasted that he had found a new 
world " more populous and more full 
of animals than our Europe, or Asia, 
or Africa, and even more temperate 
\ and pleasant than any other region 
known to us." His letters were 
printed in Latin and widely circu- 
lated throughout Europe before the 
discoveries of Columbus became generally known. More- 
over, he seemed to place his discovery of the new continent 
in 1497, a year before Columbus reached it. 

Martin Waldseemueller, a professor of geography in the 
College of St. Die in the Vosges Mountains, described the 




Amerigo Vespucci 



THE DISCOVERY AND EXPLORATION OF AMERICA 17 

new land in a book which he pubUshed in 1507. Thinking 
that Americus had discovered it, the professor suggested 
that it be called " the land of Americus or America." A 
few years later Waldseemueller corrected his mistake and 
gave Columbus credit for the discovery of South America, 
but his earlier suggestion had proved very popular and the 
name of America remamed. Later attempts to honor the 
discoverer by calling North America " Columbana" failed, 
and the entire New World discovered by the great Genoese 
continues to bear the name of the boastful Florentine. 

15. The Voyages of John Cabot. — John Cabot, a citi- 
zen of Venice, set sail from Bristol, England, in May, 1497, 
on a voyage of discovery to the west, bearing authority 
from the English king, Henry VII, to take possession of 
whatever lands he might discover. Cabot had traveled 
in the East, and he, like Columbus, hoped that a way to 
the land of spices might be found by sailing to the west. 
On this voyage and one he made the next year, Cabot seems 
to have explored much of the Atlantic coast from New- 
foundland to South Carolina. He received a pension from 
the King, but, as he had not found a route to the spice lands, 
his discoveries were soon forgotten. It was nearly a hun- 
dred years later that the English began in earnest the work 
of exploration in the New World. Then they recalled the 
discoveries of John Cabot and on them based their rights 
to colonize North America. 

16. The Discovery of the Pacific Ocean by Balboa. — 
The Spanish explorers were soon to find that it was, in truth, 
a new world that had been discovered. In 1513 Balboa, a 
bankrupt planter from the Spanish colony in Haiti, but a 
capable leader of men, crossed the Isthmus of Panama to 
find a "great water " of which the Indians had told him. 

c 



1 8 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

After eighteen days of heroic labor, spent in penetrating 
the tropical jungle of the isthmus, he beheld the waters of 
the Pacific Ocean and offered thanks to " God and all the 
Heavenly Host who had reserved the prize of so great a 
thing unto him, being a man but of small wit and knowl- 
edge, of little experience, and lowly parentage." 

17. Magellan Proves That the Earth Is Round. — The 
newly discovered ocean was crossed a few years later by 
Magellan. This Portuguese sailor, who had entered the 

service of Spam, set sail with five 
ships in September, 15 19, and late 
the next year passed through the 
straits, three hundred twenty-five 
miles long, which now bear his 
name. As he entered the ocean 
\ to the west, the waters were so 
V calm that he called it " the 
f,,n ijA' m''^' ^I'l'^^^-^^'M' reacetui b»ea, Mar Pacifico, m 
" * /' •'■'' // '/" , ' \\J Spanish . 

Ferdinand Magellan Sailing boldly to the northwest, 

the great captain at length came 
to the Ladrones and the PhiHppine Islands, where in a fight 
with the natives he met his death. One of his ships, the 
Victoria, continued the voyage to Spain, arriving in Septem- 
ber, 1522, thus completing the first voyage around the earth. 

SPANISH EXPLORATIONS IN NORTH AMERICA 

18. Ponce de Leon Discovers Florida. ^ — In 15 13, the 
same year in which Balboa discovered the Pacific, Ponce 
de Leon, one of the first governors of the island of Porto 
Rico, set out to find the island of Bimini, concerning the 




THE DISCOVERY AND EXPLORATION OF AMERICA 19 

riches of which vague reports had come from Indian sources. 
It is said also that he hoped to find there a sprmg which 
would give back youth to the old. Sailing north and west 
from Porto Rico, he came on Easter Sunday in sight of the 
coast of the mainland near the present town of St. Augustine. 




The Old Spanish Gates ok St. Augustine 

He called the land Florida from the Spanish name for 
Easter time, Pascua Florida. Before leaving the new land 
he sailed around the southern end of the peninsula and fol- 
lowed the coast as far as Tampa Bay. 

19. The Story of Cabeza de Vaca. — A Spanish expedi- 
tion under the direction of Pamfilo de Narvaez, who had 
secured an important grant of land on the Gulf of Mexico, 
landed near Tampa Bay in the spring of 1528. Directing 
his ships to follow the coast and meet him farther to the 
west, Narvaez, with three hundred men, began the explora- 
tion of the interior. He was soon forced by the warlike 



20 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 



natives to return to the coast, where he and his men built rude 
boats and made an attempt to reach the place appointed 
for the meeting with his fleet. Somewhere along the coast 
of Texas Narvaez was drowned ; the meeting with the ships 
never took place, and cold and hunger reduced the company 
to fifteen members, who were taken prisoners by the Indians. 
Among these survivors was Cabeza de Vaca, treasurer and 
historian of the expedition, who has left a stirring account 
of his adventures. After many wanderings, he and three 
companions reached the Spanish settlement of San Miguel 
on the western coast of Mexico. His description of the 
country he had seen made men in Mexico think that a land 
of great wealth lay to the north. 

20. Coronado's March. — Mexico, which had been con- 
quered by the Spaniard Cortez in 1519-1521, was now to 

furnish one of the greatest ex- 
ploring expeditions ever under- 
taken. The story of de Vaca 
received strength from the belief 
current in Mexico that there 
were in the north the seven 
cities of Cibola, as they were 
called, each as large as the City 
\ of Mexico. The report that one 
of these cities had been seen by 
a Franciscan missionary added 
to the enthusiasm for the ex- 
pedition, which set out in 1540, 
under Francisco de Coronado, 
who commanded a force of three hundred Spaniards and 
nearly twice as many Indians. The explorers did not find 
the famed cities of Cibola, but traversed much of what is 




Hernando Cortez 



THE DISCOVERY AND EXPLORATION OF AMERICA 21 

now southwestern United States, the advance guard prob- 
ably reaching Nebraska. Coronado returned to Mexico in 
1542, having lost only a few men. 

The Grand Canon of the Colorado was discovered by 
members of the expedition and Lower California was found 
to be a peninsula and not an island. In 1542 the Spanish 
explored the coast of California as far north as Cape Mendo- 
cino, so called in honor of Mendoza, the Viceroy of Mexico, 
who had fitted out Coronado's expedition. 

21. How De Soto Discovered the Mississippi. — Her- 
nando de Soto was another Spanish explorer who was at- 







'«^~*-^-^ 



De Soto Discovers the Mississippi River 



tracted to what is now the United States by the story of 
Cabeza de Vaca. Early in the summer of 1539 he landed 
at Tampa Bay with a force of about six hundred men. Two 
years were spent in exploring the country north of Florida 
and east of the Mississippi. The expedition could not 
move rapidly, as it had to time its progress with that of a 



\\ 



\^ w 




% ^ 


fe; 


1^ 


'^ 


^1 


Sl 


#// ^ 




■^/ 


o 




THE DISCOVERY AND EXPLORATION OF AMERICA 23 

drove of several hundred pigs which were taken to keep off 
famine. They reached "the great water" in May, 1541, 
and crossed it at a ponit near the present city of Memphis. 
A journey was made into the present state of Arkansas, 
where at one place de Soto's men were but a few days' 
march from Coronado's troops. An Indian woman whom 
they met told them she had left Coronado's army only nine 
days before. 

De Soto, weakened by exposure, died in May, 1542, and 
his body was buried in the waters of the Mississippi. His 
followers made their way to Mexico, which they reached 
in September, 1543. " Thus ended," says Professor Bourne, 
" the most remarkable exploring expedition in the history 
of North America." 



FRENCH EXPLORATIONS IN NORTH AMERICA 

22. The Explorations of Verrazano. — The French were 
first attracted to America by the fisheries of the North At- 
lantic. Fishermen from Normandy and Brittany arrived 
in Newfoundland as early as 1504, and thereafter every year 
great numbers of them came to the North American waters. 
The first French attempt at exploration in North America 
was made by Verrazano, a native of Florence, who was sent 
out in 1524 by Francis I, King of France, to find a northwest 
passage to India. He explored the Atlantic coast and en- 
tered the harbors of New York and Newport. 

23. Cartier Visits the St. Lawrence. — Jacques Cartier, a 
mariner of St. Malo, the home of many of the fishermen who 
came to Newfoundland, entered the Gulf of St. Lawrence 
in 1534 iri search of a westerly passage to the East. The 
next year he returned and ascended the St. Lawrence River 



24 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 




Jacques Cartier 



to Lachine Rapids at the head of navigation. The great 
hill beside the rapids he called Mount Royal, a name 

perpetuated in the city of 
Montreal. He passed the 
winter near the present site 
of Quebec and then returned 
to France. 

24. The French in Florida. 
— Jean Ribaut, a capable 
mariner, was sent out in 
\ 1562 by Coligny, the leader 
of the French Protestants, to 
find a location for a colony in 
America. He reached the 
mainland in Florida and explored the coast for some dis- 
tance to the northward. Thirty men were left at Port 
Royal Sound, near the modern town of Beaufort, South 
CaroHna, to hold the country for France, but the gar- 
rison soon abandoned the place and sailed for France in a 
vessel of their own construction. In 1564 another attempt 
at colonization was made by French Protestants, this time 
on St. John's River, Florida. The next year this settlement 
was ruthlessly destroyed by Menendez, the Spanish governor 
of Florida. 

25. The French in the North. — French fishermen con- 
tinued to visit Newfoundland and the St. LaVrence, but, 
owing to civil wars at home, it was not until the early years 
of the seventeenth century that the work of colonization 
was taken up in earnest. Sieur de Monts, a Frenchman 
who had great influence with his king, Henry IV, received 
authority to colonize and govern the land of Acadia, a vast 
region extending from the fortieth to the forty-sixth parallel 



THE DISCOVERY AND EXPLORATION OF AMERICA 25 



of latitude ; that is, from southern Pennsylvania to north- 
ern Nova Scotia. He was at the same time granted com- 
plete control of the fur trade in his new lands. De Monts 
came to America in 1604 and made a settlement on the 
St. Croix River near the present boundary between Maine 
and New Brunswick, but the next year he moved across the 
Bay of Fundy to Port Royal, now Annapolis, Nova Scotia. 

26. The Founding of Quebec. — With de Monts' ex- 
pedition was Samuel de Champlain, who had already made 
several voyages to America. 
Being of an energetic dis- 
position, he undertook the 
exploration of the coast as 
far south as Cape Cod and 
entered Plymouth harbor, 
naming it Port St. Louis. 
In 1608 he ascended the St. 
Lawrence and established a 
fort on the present site of 
Quebec as a center for the 
fur trade and his great work 
of exploration. 

27. Champlain and the Iroquois. — The next year (1609), 
in company with an Indian war party, he ascended the Riche- 
lieu River, and, on the shores of the beautiful lake which 
now bears his name, took part in an attack on the Iroquois 
Indians. His gun helped greatly in deciding the day against 
the Iroquois, but his success was unfortunate for the French 
interests in North America. The defeated Iroquois ever 
afterwards felt an intense hatred for the French and 
readily formed an alliance with the English against them. 
(Sec. 96.) 




Samuel de Champlain 




French Explorations 



THE DISCOVERY AND EXPLORATION OF AMERICA 27 

Before his death in 1635, Champlain made many exploring 
expeditions far into the interior. One of his agents, Jean 
Nicolet, went as far west as Wisconsin and made trading 
agreements with the Indians of that region. The rich fur 
trade proved very attractive to the French, and the Great 
Lakes and the St. Lawrence River formed an excellent 
highway for the exchange of goods with the natives. 

Vocabiilary 

Explain as fully as possible the meanings of the following : 
arbitrator exploit league parallels of latitude 

aborigines Holy Sepulcher mutinied permanent 

demarcation infidel navigation Venetian 

Map Exercises 

1. Make simple sketch maps and upon them locate the following: 
Europe — Iceland, Venice, Genoa, Pisa, Marseilles, Montpellier, 

Nuremburg, Constance, Constantinople, Balkan Peninsula, 
Palos, Normandy, Brittany. America — Nova Scotia, San 
Salvador, Haiti, Cuba, Isthmus of Panama, Tampa Bay, Grand 
Caiion of the Colorado, Memphis, Straits of Magellan, Gulf of St. 
Lawrence, Great Lakes, Newfoundland, Cape Cod, Lake Cham- 
plain, Montreal, Quebec, Lachine Rapids, Richelieu River, St. 
Croix River, New Brunswick, Bay of Fundy, Port Royal. Orient 
— Ladrones, Philippine Islands, Calicut. 

2. Trace on your map two routes from western Europe to India used 

by traders before the time of Columbus. 

3. Indicate on the map the "line of demarcation." 

4. What other places mentioned in the chapter do you think should be 

located on this map ? 

Questions 

I . Why was Europe so tardy in sending expeditions westward .'' 2. Did 
the Northmen have any influence on the history of North America ? 
3. How was the attention of Europe turned toward America .'' 4. Explain 
briefly our system of reckoning time and the use of the term " century." 



28 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

5. Why was trade between the East and the West important ? Whom 
did it benefit ? 6. What interfered with this trade ? 7. Why did Spain 
and Portugal take the lead in finding new routes to India ? 8. What was 
the interest of European Christians in the East ? 9. Why were the 
journeys of Portuguese sailors along the African coast important to 
Columbus ? 10. Was Columbus the first man to believe the earth round ? 
II. State the threefold object of Columbus. 12. What were the diffi- 
culties Columbus experienced on his first voyage.? 13. What was 
accomplished by his second, third, and fourth voyages .? 14. Describe 
a ship of the time of Columbus. 15. Explain the "line of demarcation." 
16. What was the injustice in naming the new continent America .' In 
what way is this a lesson in accuracy and responsibility? 17. What 
great thing did Columbus believe he had done ? What had he actually 
done? 18. State two motives which prompted the French explorers? 
19. Describe the location of Acadia ? 20. Why was the enmity of the 
Iroquois aroused against the French ? Why was this important ? 
21. How did the French make use of the Great Lakes and the St. Law- 
rence ? 



CHAPTER II 

THE AMERICAN INDIANS 

28. How the Indians Received Their Name. — When 
Columbus landed on San Salvador, he beheved he had 
reached the Indies and so he called the people whom he found 
on the island Indians. People like those that Columbus 
found were widely distributed over our country when the 
early settlers came. Though they had many different lan- 
guages and different ways of life, they looked much alike, 
having prominent cheek bones, dark-brown eyes, and coarse 
black hair. Their skin was usually brown, but in some 
tribes it was slightly yellowish. The men's faces were 
generally beardless, due to the custom of pulling out the 
hairs of the face. The Indians differed greatly in size, from 
the small Pueblos of the Southwest, who averaged about 
five feet, to the Cheyennes and other tribes of the plains, 
who were very tall. 

29. The Mound Builders. — In many parts of our coun- 
try, especially in the Mississippi Valley, there are mounds 
of great size and curious shapes. Conical mounds have been 
discovered eighty to ninety feet in height and three hundred 
feet in diameter. Sometimes the mounds look like animal 
forms. One of the most famous of these is the Serpent 
Mound in Adams County, Ohio, which is 1000 feet long. 
Some of the mounds were used for burial purposes, others 

29 



30 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

as fortifications, but of some the use is unknown. In some 
pottery of good design, axes, nngs, and bracelets of beaten 
copper have been found. Because of the excellence of the 
work in many cases, it used to be thought that the mounds 
and the things they contained must be the work of a supe- 
rior race that preceded the Indians in America. But careful 
exploration has revealed articles of European origin in some 
of the mounds, showing that mound-building was still going 
on after the discovery of America. Besides, work as skillful 
as that found in the mounds has been done by Indian tribes 
of Mexico, and it may be that the ancestors of some of the 
Mexican Indians once lived in the Mississippi Valley. 

30. The Eastern Indians. — The Indians who played 
the most important part in the early history of our country 
were those east of the Mississippi River. With few excep- 
tions, they may be divided into three groups, the most power- 
ful of which were the Iroquois, who held the country around 
lakes Erie and Ontario, the greater part of New York, and 
eastern Pennsylvania. They included the famous Five 
Nations' Confederacy of the Mohawks, Onondagas, Oneidas, 
Cayugas, and Senecas. After 171 5 the confederation was 
known as the Six Nations, the Tuscaroras of North Carolina 
having migrated to the north to join their Iroquois kindred. 
The powerful Cherokee tribe in northern Georgia and Ala- 
bama was related to the Iroquois. 

From the Cherokee country to the Gulf of Mexico and from 
the Mississippi to the Atlantic, the land was occupied by 
the southern or Maskoki group of Indians, the principal 
tribes being the Chickasaws, Choctaws, Creeks, and Semi- 
noles. 

The third great group was that of the Algonquins, who 
occupied the Atlantic coast region from the Carolinas to 



THE AMERICAN INDIANS 3 1 

Labrador and nearly all of the Ohio Valley, as well as the 
country around Lake Superior and Lake Michigan, thus 
completely surrounding the main body of the Iroquois. The 
Indians with whom the English settlers came in contact in 
the first years of colonial history were mainly of the Algon- 
quin group. 

31. Food and Dwellings of the Indians. — The Indian 
was a hunter or fisherman wherever possible, but the natives 
east of the Mississippi tilled the soil to some extent. They 
cultivated maize, or Indian corn, beans, squash, and tobaccc, 
and made sugar from the maple sap. Their only domestic 
animal was the dog. Some tribes ate dog flesh, but in 
general the Indian had to get his supply of animal food by 
capture. The deer in the eastern forest region was hunted 
with bow and arrow, not only for its meat but for the skin, 
which was used as the chief material for clothing. On the 
plains the buffalo supplied meat as well as hides for robes 
and tepee coverings. 

When de Soto visited the Cherokees, he found them living 
in permanent log houses ; and some of the southwestern 
Indians had dwellings of stone, but usually the Indian's house 
was not well built. The eastern Indian often lived in a small 
hut or wigwam, the frame of which was made of saplings 
set in the ground and bent together at the tops. Over this 
frame a network of flexible branches was woven and the 
whole covered with bark or mats woven of grass. The 
Iroquois lived in their famous " long houses," which were 
often nearly a hundred feet in length and from fifteen to 
twenty feet in width. A passageway ran from one end to 
the other, with the family compartments on either side. 
Fires were made in the passageway, so that one fire would 
serve the needs of two families. Holes in the roof per- 



32 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 



mitted the smoke to escape. In the upper lake and plains 
region, the Indian's dwelHng was usually the conical tepee. 
The frame of light poles was tied together at the top and 
covered with bark or buffalo skin. The tepee could be 




An Indian Wigwam 

moved readily from place to place. Two women could 
take It down or set it up in an hour. 

32. Indian Industries. — The Indian had a great deal of 
skill in certain lines of work. He had to depend chiefly on 
the skins of animals for clothing and learned to prepare these 
so as to make them wonderfull}^ soft and well adapted to 
his purpose. Pottery was another Indian art, especially 
practiced in the Southwest. The weaving of baskets and 
mats was a widespread industry. In the Southwest the 
natives wove cotton cloth, and, after the Franciscan mis- 
sionaries had made them acquainted with sheep, they wove 
material from wool. 




THE AMERICAN INDIANS 33 

The Indian craftsman made many instruments of peace 
and war. The snowshoe permitted him to travel rapidly 
in the deep snows of the northern winter. He traveled 
readily by water in his bark canoe, made so light that it 
could be carried around 
falls and rapids or from 
one stream to another at 
the portages. The char- 
acteristic weapon of the 
Indian was the bow and 

•arrow. The tomahawk or Indian Weapons 

stone-headed club was a 

common weapon of war, and aTtcr the coming of the whites 

steel hatchets were used. 

The Indians made articles of personal adornment from 
clam shells and other shells, which they called wampum. 
Sometimes beads were made of the shells. Belts wrought 
of beads, often of elaborate workmanship and highly valued, 
were used to pay tribute and as money in exchanging goods. 

33. Indian Society. — The Indian tribe was usually made 
up of clans or groups of families. All the members of a clan 
were supposed to be descended from a common ancestor, 
usually a woman, and often the clan bore the name of a 
plant or animal, to which relationship was claimed. The 
clan usually acted together in war, but there was no way 
to force an individual to take part in a warlike expedition 
if he did not care to. This was one of the chief weaknesses 
of the Indians when they had to fight the whites. The clan 
was governed by a chief, or sachem, who was usually chosen 
by the adult men and women of the clan and could be de- 
posed by them. He presided over the meetings of the clan 
and had a right to sit with the heads of other clans in the 

D 



34 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

council. In times of war, or other crises, special chiefs might 
be chosen whose authority ceased when the crisis was passed. 
Property was held in common by the clan, an arrangement 
that prevented poverty. 

34. The Religion of the Indian. — The Indian believed 
that every plant, animal, or other object of nature had a 
spirit. The spirits of both man and the lower animals were 
thought to exist after death and to have an interest in the 
affairs of the living. The religious ceremonies of the Indians 
were chiefly concerned with gaining the good will of these 
spirits. Supplications took the form of dancing and dra- 
matic performances. In some cases sacrifices were offered ; 
in Mexico human beings were the victims. If an Indian 
secured the constant aid of a powerful spirit, he became a 
shaman, or " medicine-man," and was called upon to treat 
the sick. 

The Indians believed that the soul of the dead lived on 
and had needs similar to those of the body when living. On 
this account various offerings were made at the grave, and 
the personal belongings of the dead were often buried with 
him. 

35. Relations between the Indians and the Whites. — 
The first white men in America learned many things from 
the Indian. The savage often saved them from famine. He 
taught the white man the use of corn, a food product of the 
greatest value in colonial days as well as now. The white 
man soon learned that this valuable food could be grown 
without clearing the land. He learned from the Indians 
to kill trees by " girdling " them, and to plant corn in the 
midst of the forest. Tobacco, another gift of the Indian, 
was of the highest value to the early colonists, giving them 
a commodity that soon commanded high prices in Europe 



THE AMERICAN INDIANS 



35 




36 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

and that could be used to buy the necessaries of colonial 
hfe. 

Vocabulary 

clan dramatic saplings supplications tomahawk 

confederation sachem shaman tepee wampum 

Questions 

I. How would you recognize an Indian? 2. If there are any Indian 
mounds in your locality, learn what you can of them. 3. Name and 
locate the three main groups of Eastern Indians. 4. Which of the three 
was important in early colonial history.? Why.? 5. Describe three 
kinds of Indian homes. What are the advantages of our homes over the 
Indians' ? Of theirs over ours ? 6. What products of Indian industry 
have you seen ? Describe them. 7. How did the Indians buy and sell .? 
8. Describe some of the religious ceremonies of the Indians. 9. Was 
their religion in any respect like Christianity ? 



CHAPTER III 

THE EARLY MISSIONARIES 
The Spanish Missions 

36. Missions in the Southwest. — Father Marcos of 
Niza, a Franciscan, was the first white man to visit the In- 
dians of Arizona and New Mexico (i 539)- Two years later, 




An Old Spanish Mission 

in 1 541, Franciscans accompanied Coronado's army to New 
Mexico, and remained in the country to evangehze the 
natives. Of this missionary group, Father Juan de Padilla 
and Father Juan de La Cruz and a lay brother, Luis de 
Escalona, were murdered by the Indians, a tragedy which 
postponed further missionary efforts in the Southwest for 
forty years. 

37 



38 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

37. The Florida Missions. — The first permanent estab- 
lishment of the Christian rehgion, in what is now the 
United States, was effected at St. Augustine, Florida, a city 
founded by the Spaniard, Menendez, in 1565. Father Lopez 
de Mendoza of the Dominican Order, who celebrated the 
first Mass in St. Augustine, on September 8 of that year, was 
appointed the first pastor of the parish by the Bishop of 
Santiago, Cuba. Efforts had been made to convert the 
natives by Father Luis Cancer de Barbastro and other 
Dominicans in 1549, but while they were making a land- 
ing near Tampa Bay, the missionaries were all put to death. 

Spanish Jesuits arrived in Florida in 1566. Father Pedro 
Martinez, one of their number, was slain by the savages. 
Father Segura, another Jesuit, began a mission on Chesa- 
peake Bay, where, after a brief success among the natives of 
that region, he too was killed. 

The Franciscans entered the Florida mission field in 1577. 
In spite of a general massacre of the missionaries twenty 
years later, the work of evangelization was continued and 
before the middle of the seventeenth century thirty-five Fran- 
ciscans in Florida directed forty-four missions with thirty 
thousand Christian Indians. 

The French Missions 

38. Missions in New France. — The work of spreading 
the Gospel among the natives of New France followed close 
upon the coming of the French. The French missionaries, 
in their efforts to convert the children of the forest to the 
Christian faith, traversed not only the lands of Canada 
but much of New England and the region of the Great Lakes 
and the Mississippi. The missionaries taught the Indians 
the arts of civilized life as well as the truths of religion. 



THE EARLY MISSIONARIES 39 

The letters of these missionaries and other writings de- 
scribing their work on the missions are among our chief 
sources of information concerning a large part of North 
America at the time of the coming of the white man. A 
great collection of these writings, entitled The Jesuit Rela- 
tions, has been published in over seventy volumes. The 
editor of this great work, Reuben Gold Thwaites, speaking 
of the deeds of the early missionaries, says : 

With heroic fortitude, often with marvelous enterprise, they pierced 
our wilderness while still there were but Indian trails to connect far- 
distant villages of semi-naked aborigines. They saw North America 
and the North Americans practically in the primitive stage. Culti- 
vated men, for the most part, — ^ trained to see as well as to think, and 
carefully to make record of their experiences, — they left the most 
luxurious country in Europe to seek shelter in the foul and unwelcome 
huts of one of the most wretched races of men. To win these crude 
beings to the Christian faith it was necessary to know them intimately, 
in their daily walks. No coureur du bois ^ was more expert in forest lore 
than were the Jesuit fathers ; and the records made by these soldiers of 
the Cross . . . are of the highest scientific value. 

39. The Maine Missions. — The earHest of the French 
missions were among the natives of New Brunswick and 
Maine. In 161 1 the Jesuit Fathers Biard and Masse ar- 
rived at Port Royal and undertook to learn the Indian lan- 
guages in preparation for their work. Two years later they 
established themselves at Mt. Desert Island on the Maine 
coast, but a short time afterward, Argall, an Englishman 
from the recently established colony of Virginia, destroyed 
the settlement. Father Biard was taken to Europe, and 
Father Masse, who was set adrift in an open boat, was 
picked up by a French ship. 

In 1619 the Franciscan Recollects began a mission in 

1 Trapper. 



40 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

Nova Scotia but five years later withdrew to Quebec. In 
1634 the Jesuit Father Perrault estabhshed a mission on 
Cape Breton, and from this there developed a very success- 
ful work among the Micmacs, which was later aided by the 
Recollects and the Sulpicians of Quebec. Father Gabriel 
Druiellettes, a Jesuit, visited the country around the mouth 
of the Kennebec in 1646, and for eleven years successfully 
taught the Abnakis of that region. In 1650 he visited the 
English settlements of Massachusetts to discuss a proposal 
of union between New England and New France against 
the Iroquois. 

The first Catholic church in New England was built at 
Oldtown, Maine, in 1688 by the Reverend Louis P. Thury, 
Among the noted missionaries of these early days was the 
Reverend Sebastian Rale, a Jesuit, who spent nearly thirty 
years among the Indians of Maine and compiled a dic- 
tionary of the Abnaki tongue. He was the trusted adviser 
of the Indians in the border troubles of the day and was 
killed by the English at his post of duty at Norridgewock 
in 1724. 

40. Missions among the Hurons. — The Huron, or 
Wyandot, Indians, unlike the wandering tribes of the lower 
St. Lawrence, tilled the soil and had a fixed abode in the 
region east of Lake Huron. They were visited for a brief 
period in 161 5 by the Recollect Father Le Caron. Other 
members of his order came to them m the following ten 
years, among them the lay brother, Gabriel Sagard, historian 
of the Recollect missions. In 1626 Father Brebeuf, a Jesuit, 
took up the work among the Hurons. His success was con- 
siderable, but while visiting Quebec in 1629 he fell into the 
hands of the English, who had taken that place. When 
Canada was returned to France by the treaty of St. Gar- 



THE EARLY MISSIONARIES 41 

main (1632), the Jesuits were given entire control of the 
Indian missions. 

In 1634 Father Brebeuf returned to his Hurons, accom- 
panied by Fathers Davost and Daniel, and laid the founda- 
tion of what has been called the greatest Jesuit mission in 
the history of New France. Fathers Charles Garnier and 
Isaac Jogues, — both later to suffer martyrdom at the hands 
of the Indians, — and other priests were soon added to the 
staff of the mission. Buildings of a permanent character 
were erected and preparations made to carry the work of 
the missions far into the interior. In 1641 Fathers Raim- 
bault and Jogues traveled as far west as Sault Sainte 
Marie, the outlet of Lake Superior. Other missionary 
journeys were made into the neighboring regions. 

The promise of the great foundation among the Hurons 
was, however, cut short by the furious attacks of the Iro- 
quois. In July, 1648, the chief town of the Hurons was 
destroyed and Father Daniel killed. The next year the war 
was renewed, and after cruel tortures Fathers Brebeuf and 
Gabriel Lalement met death at the hands of the Iroquois. 
The same year Fathers Chabanel and Garnier were killed 
by the savages. The Huron nation was almost annihilated, 
and the missions in which twenty-nine priests had been en- 
gaged had to be abandoned. 

41. The Attempt to Establish Missions among the Iro- 
quois. — Father Jogues was captured by the Iroquois in 
1642 while on his way to secure supplies for the Huron mis- 
sions. He was tortured, mutilated, and for thirteen months 
held as a slave at Auriesville about forty miles west of Al- 
bany on the Mohawk. Rene Goupil, a young physician 
who was with him, was put to death, but Father Jogues was 
rescued by the Dutch and taken to Europe. Four years 



42 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

later (1646) he returned to the Iroquois on a peace mission 
which seemed successful. But later in the same year, when 
he appeared among them as a missionary, he was horribly 
beaten and cut with knives and finally killed near Lake 
George. Some years afterward other attempts were made 
to convert the Iroquois, but in 1658 the missionaries with- 
drew on account of a threat of a general massacre of the 
French. 

Two years later, in 1660, a request came from the Iroquois 
for missionaries, and Father Le Moyne, who had already 
labored among them, answered the call. By 1668 a mission 
had been established in each of the five chief tribes of the 
Iroquois Confederacy, and the work promised success, when 
the growth of the English power in the Iroquois country 
compelled the missionaries to withdraw. 

42. The Ottawa Mission. — The Ottawa Indians were 
the first of the tribes beyond Lake Huron to trade with the 
French and so their name was given to the whole region of 
the Upper Lakes. As we have seen, Fathers Jogues and 
Raimbault visited Sault Sainte Marie, the outlet of Lake 
Superior, in 1641. Nineteen years later Father Menard 
arrived in what is now Wisconsin to minister to Hurons who 
had fled from the Iroquois. He perished in the wilds of 
Wisconsin in 1661. Father Claude Allouez reached Che- 
quamegon Bay, near the western end of Lake Superior, in 
October, 1665, where he built a chapel of bark for his Indian 
charges. For thirty years he labored among the Indians 
of the Upper Mississippi region, establishing missions at 
Green Bay, on the Miami, and, with Father Marquette, 
at 'fCaskaskia. Of Father Marquette we shall hear later. 



THE EARLY MISSIONARIES 43 

Vocabulary 

coureur de hois martyrdom 

evangelize mission 

lay brother Sulpician 

Map Exercises 

Locate: Santa Fe, St. Augustine (Florida), Chesapeake Bay, New 
Brunswick, Cape Breton, Kennebec River, Sault Sainte Marie, Lake 
George, Green Bay. 

Questions 

I. When was the Christian religion first established permanently in 
the "present territory of the United States ? 2. What missionaries labored 
among the Florida Indians in early days? 3. What twofold object 
had all missionaries to the Indians ? 4. What is the importance of the 
records of these missionaries in the history of the United States ? 5. Why 
were the missionaries obliged to learn the Indian tongues ? 6. How did 
the enmity of the Iroquois affect the Huron missions in the West ? 7. Who 
furnishes the greatest example of bravery among these early fathers } 
What prompted such bravery \ 



CHAPTER IV 



THE ENGLISH IN AMERICA 



43. The Exploits of Drake and Hawkins. — Although 
there are records of EngHsh voyages to Newfoundland in 
1527 and 1535, and although Enghsh fishermen soon began 
to visit that island every summer in large numbers, these 
voyages did not lead to colonization. 

After the middle of the sixteenth 
century, however, the English became 
interested in America through contact 
with the rich Spanish possessions in 
the New World. Captain John Haw- 
kins of Plymouth engaged in the slave 
trade between Africa and Haiti and 
shared the profits of his enterprise with 
Queen Elizabeth. His nephew, Francis 
Drake, who spent many years in plun- 
dering Spanish treasure ships carrying 
gold and silver from America, entered the Pacific Ocean 
in 1578, and sailed northward as far as Oregon. He 
landed on the California coast near San Francisco Bay and 
named the country New Albion. He returned to England 
by way of the Cape of Good Hope, — the first Englishman 
to circumnavigate the globe. The exploits of Drake and 
Hawkins and other freebooters revealed to Englishmen 

44 




Sir Francis Drake 



THE ENGLISH IN AMERICA 



45 



the great wealth that Spain was drawing from her Ameri- 
can possessions and stimulated English interest in the New 
World. 

44. The Work of Gilbert and Raleigh. — Sir 'Humphrey 
Gilbert, an EngHshman who wanted to find a northwest 
passage to China, thought a colony in America would be a 
convenient base from which to make explorations. He 
made an unsuccessful attempt to cross the Atlantic in iS7^y 
but five years later he reached Newfoundland, of which he 
took possession in the name of 
Queen Elizabeth. Setting out 
to the southward to find a favor- 
able location for his settlement, 
he lost two of his vessels. On 
his way back to England, the 
ship he was on went down and 
he perished. 

Walter Raleigh, Gilbert's half- 
brother, now took up the work, 
and in 1584 sent out an expedi- 
tion which discovered Roanoke 

Island off the coast of North Carolina. The next year 
a new expedition started out to explore the mainland 
near Roanoke Island with a view to permanent settlement. 
There was trouble with the Indians, and the members of 
the expedition were glad to go home with Drake, who hap- 
pened to visit Roanoke in 1586. They took home with them 
two products of American soil — tobacco and the potato — 
which were to be of great importance in the world's com- 
merce. 

In 1587 Raleigh renewed his attempt at colonization. 
One hundred fifty persons, of whom twenty-five were 




Sir Walter Raleigh 



46 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

women and children, landed at Roanoke under the leader- 
ship of Governor John White. The governor soon felt 
compelled to return to England for needed supplies. When 
he got home, he found his country threatened by an invasion 
from Spain, and, though the great Spanish fleet, the In- 
vincible Armada, was defeated in 1588, it was not until 1591 
that White was able again to visit Roanoke. He found the 
fort in ruins and the island deserted ; he never discovered 
the fate of his fellow colonists. 

45. Voyages to the North Coast. — Interest in the lands 
beyond the Atlantic was increased by several voyages to 
the New England coast in the opening years of the seven- 
teenth century. Bartholomew Gosnold reached the coast 
of Massachusetts in 1602. He built a trading post on an 
island off the coast and secured a valuable cargo of sassafras, 
which he took to England. The next year Martin Pring 
made a profitable voyage to Plymouth harbor, which he 
called Whitsun Bay. In 1605 George Weymouth explored 
the land in the vicinity of the Kennebec River. He saw 
the country in the summer time and returned home with 
most encouraging accounts of its climate and resources. 
His praises and the favorable reports of Gosnold and Pring 
helped the colonization movement in England. Peace had 
just been concluded with Spain, and many who had been en- 
gaged in war turned their attention to peaceful enterprises. 

46. Why England Needed Colonies. — The early years 
of the seventeenth century were favorable to the work of 
American colonization because of conditions in England. 
Thousands of Englishmen left their native land to make 
homes in the New World. 

I. The trade of England in wool and woolen goods had 
recently grown greatly in extent. High prices were paid 



THE ENGLISH IN AMERICA 47 

for these products, and many large landowners found they 
could make more money by turning their estates into sheep 
pastures than by renting for ordinary farming purposes. 
As a result many thousands of farmers and farm laborers 
and their families were driven from the country districts 
and compelled to seek a living in the towns. With so many 
out of work, beggary and thieving greatly increased. The 
government passed manv laws to deal with the increased 
unemployment, poverty, and crime. When the planting 
of colonies in America offered a chance to rid the country 
of the poor and unemployed, the government was glad to 
assist in the work. Naturally, also, the poor were ready 
to go to America as colonists rather than suffer in the work- 
houses and prisons of England. 

2. England's commerce by sea was growing so rapidly 
that there was great need of timber for ship-building. The 
early explorers had found in America valuable forests, 
which offered a reason for establishing colonies. 

3. England was dependent on the countries of southern 
Europe for wines, fruits, and many other products. It 
was hoped that Englishmen could produce many of these 
things in colonies established in the New World. 

4. As time went on, religious and political troubles in 
England made many anxious to leave the country and build 
up colonies on this side of the Atlantic. 

Vocabulary 

circumnavigate 
freebooters Whitsun 

sassafras workhouse 

Map Exercises 
Locate: Roanoke Island; San Francisco Bay. 



48 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

Questions 

I. What stimulated English interest in the New World in the sixteenth 
century? 2. Why did Raleigh's attempted colonies fail? 3. What 
classes of people in England were ready to come to America ? Why ? 



CHAPTER V 



THE SOUTHERN COLONIES 

Virginia 

47. The First Virginia Charter. — In 1606 a group of 
English merchants received from King James I a charter 
authorizing them to 
found colonies in Vir- 
ginia, as the whole 



region claimed by 
England in America 
was then called. The 
group was divided 
into two companies : 
one, made up chiefly 
of Londoners, was 
known as the Lon- 
don Company ; the 
other, made up of 
men of Plymouth 
and other west of 
England towns, was 
known as the Plym- 
outh Company. The London Company was free to choose 
a location between the thirty-fourth and the forty-first paral- 
lels of latitude ; that is, anywhere from Cape Fear to the 

E 49 




Land Granted to the London and Plymouth 
Companies 



50 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

Hudson River. The Plymouth Company was to choose a 
more northerly location between the thirty-eighth and the 
forty-fifth parallels ; that is, from the Potomac to the Bay 
of Fundy. The grants overlapped from the Potomac to the 
Hudson, but if either entered this overlapping region the 
other would be excluded, because the colonies were required 
to be one hundred miles apart. Each company was to 
receive a tract one hundred miles along the coast and a 
hundred miles inland. 

48. The Founding of Jamestown (1607). — In December, 
1606, the London Company sent out one hundred twenty 
men in three ships under the command of Captain Chris- 
topher Newport, who reached Chesapeake Bay six months 
later. Passing up the James River, which they named in. 
honor of the King, they made a landing about thirty miles 
from the mouth of the stream on a site easily defensible. 
By the middle of June a small fort was completed at the 
settlement, which they called Jamestown. 

49. The Early Sufferings of the Jamestown Colonists. — 
Life in the new land proved hard for the first settlers at 
Jamestown. The supplies they brought with them were 
insufficient ; and, though the waters abounded in fish and 
the forests in game, these early colonists did not know the 
arts of the hunter and the fisherman. The Indians resented 
their coming and were not disposed to give them food. The 
situation they chose was unhealthful, and malaria and other 
fevers soon appeared among them. Their dwellings were 
rude huts and holes in the ground. More than half their 
number had died when Captain Newport, who had sailed 
to England, returned in January, 1608, with supplies. 

The colonists were not given separate pieces of land of 
their own to cultivate, but were required to work as the 



THE SOUTHERN COLONIES 



51 



officers of the company directed. They were fed and clothed 
from the company's stores and whatever they produced 
went to the company. The merchants who had put their 
money in the enterprise wanted immediate returns ; so, 
of those who were able to work, some were kept busy cutting 
cedar and walnut trees for shipment to England, while 
others were sent prospecting for gold. During the first 
year only four acres were planted with corn. 

50. The Work of Captain John Smith. — Matters im- 
proved somewhat the second year when Captain John 
Smith was given charge of the colony. 
He won the goodwill of the Indians 
^and traded with them for food sup- 
plies. He procured good drinking 
water for the town and cleared and 
planted forty acres of land with 
Indian corn. Unfortunately an in- 
jury received from an explosion of 
gunpowder compelled him to return 
to England in October, 1609. 

51. The "Starving Time." — Un- 
der Smith's successor matters grew 
worse. The hundreds of new colonists who had come 
out from England were furnished with supplies for only 
a few months at most. During the winter following 
Smith's departure twenty-eight men, sent to trade with 
the Indians, were surprised and killed by the savages. The 
natives carried off the pigs from the settlement, and made 
it dangerous for the colonists to leave the protection of the 
fort. The corn supply failed, the horses and dogs were 
killed for food, and even the dead body of an Indian was 
eaten. Out of five hundred persons in the colony in the 




Captain John Smith 



52 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

summer of 1609, only sixty were living in May, 1610. The 
survivors decided to return to England, but, before the 
ships on which they embarked could leave the river, a new 
governor, Lord Delaware, arrived with additional colonists 
and supplies. Jamestown was reoccupied after one day's 
absence. 

52. The Charter of 1609. — In spite of unfavorable 
reports from Virginia, many people in England were deter- 
mined that the colony should not fail. Men from every 
class of society, including many of the most famous English- 
men of the time, bought shares of stock in the company, 
which, by a new charter granted in 1609, received a large 
increase of land. Its territory was now to extend along the 
coast two hundred miles south of Point Comfort at the mouth 
of the James and two hundred miles north of that place, 
and " up into the land throughout from sea to sea, west 
and northwest." 

The colony was to be ruled by a governor, who was given 
almost absolute power. He was able to set up military 
trials instead of trial by jury, and could inflict terrible 
punishments for small offenses. Disrespect for those in 
authority could be punished by death for the third offense. 
Profane language also was punishable by death for the third 
offense. Failure to attend church services daily might bring 
upon the offender six months in the galleys, and repeated 
absence from the Sunday services was punishable by death. 
The charter forbade Catholics to enter the colony. 

53. Land Rented to the Colonists. — In 1614 the colo- 
nists were given opportunity to rent small tracts of land 
from the company and raise their own food. The diligent 
workers were able to profit by their labors and the idle were 
compelled to work. Although heavy rents were charged, 



THE SOUTHERN COLONIES 53 

the plan was a success from the beginning. Before it had 
been in operation a year, the governor's secretary was able 
to write " when our people were fed out of the common 
store and labored jointly m the manurmg of ground and 
planting corn . . . the most honest of them would not take 
much faithful and true pains in a week as now he will do 
in a day." 

54. How the Cultivation of Tobacco Enriched the Colony. 
— The use of tobacco had been popularized in England by 
Sir Walter Raleigh, whose colonists had brought it home 
from Roanoke. The soil and climate of Virginia were well 
adapted to the growth of this plant, and its cultivation was 
begun as early as 161 2 by John Rolfe, who married Poca- 
hontas, a daughter of the powerful Indian chief Powhatan. 
Tobacco brought a very high price on the London market, 
a pound sometimes selling for as much as twelve dollars in 
present money values. Sixteen pounds of tobacco were 
worth as much as a good horse. The government at home 
tried to discourage the sale of tobacco for a time, and the 
London Company wanted the colonists to engage in the 
production of silk, wine, flax, and other things for which 
there had long been a market in England. But the demand 
for tobacco proved more powerful than the wishes of the 
King or the company, and the Virginians found open to 
them a great source of wealth. 

55. The Labor Supply; Slavery. — Fortunes were ac- 
cumulated in a few years by large numbers of planters, and 
many new settlements were made. So great a demand for 
laborers arose that special arrangements were made to bring 
them from England. Persons too poor to pay their way to 
Virginia would agree to serve a planter for a term of years, 
usually five, in return for their passage across the ocean. 



54 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 



The agreements which they signed were known as indentures, 
and the laborers became known as indentured servants. 
Man}^ thousands of them came to Virginia and other colo- 
nies. Often poor boys and girls were gathered up by the 
hundreds and turned over to the company. Prisoners were 




Jamestown in 1622 

taken from the jails, and workmen were kidnapped to supply 
labor for the colonies. 

In 1619 twenty negro slaves were landed at Jamestown, 
probably the first in the colony. The demand for slaves 
on the tobacco plantations grew very rapidly in the later 
years of the seventeenth century, and by 1700 nearly one 
fourth of the population of Virginia was made up of negroes. 

56. The Beginning of Self-government. — In order to 
promote emigration to Virginia, the company decided to 
make more liberal grants of land and to give the settlers a voice 
in the government. Sir George Yeardley, who came out 



THE SOUTHERN COLONIES 55 

to Virginia in 1619 as governor, announced the new plan. 
Those who came before 1616 were to get one hundred acres 
of land ; those who came after that date, if they paid their 
own way, were to get fifty acres. 

Each of eleven settlements was asked to send representa- 
tives, or burgesses as they were called, to a general assembly 
at Jamestown. The burgesses together with the governor 
gnd his six councilors, who were appointed by the company, 
made up the legislature of the colony. The first meeting 
of the assembly took place July 30, 1619. It marked the 
beginning of representative government in America. The 
Virginia House of Burgesses became a great training school 
in political leadership, and many of the most famous men 
of Revolutionary times were members of it. 

57. The Dissolution of the London Company. — The 
London Company had enemies at court who were anxious 
to destroy it. They called the king's attention to the great 
loss of life in the colony ; three thousand persons died in 
Virginia from disease and starvation in the three years be- 
fore 1622. In that year an Indian uprising cost the lives of 
nearly four hundred others. Therefore it was charged that 
the company could not protect its people, and suit was 
brought to annul its charter. The company was dissolved 
(1624) and the colony passed into the hands of the king. 

58. Virginia as a Royal Province. — James I seems to 
have intended to destroy representative government in 
Virginia, but his death in 1625 prevented the completion 
of his plans. His son, Charles I, soon became involved in 
a quarrel with Parliament over questions of taxation and 
religion, and had little time to interfere with affairs in Vir- 
ginia. The private property of the settlers in Virginia was 
not disturbed, but the ungranted lands of the company 



56 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

'were taken over as the property of the crown. Some of 
this land was later given to the Maryland colony and be- 
came a cause of dissension between that colony and Virginia. 

59. The Cavaliers. — Civil war began in England in 
1642 between King Charles and the dominant party in 
Parliament. The King's party was defeated after several 
years of fighting, and in 1649 the King was beheaded. 
Great numbers of his followers fled to Virginia, where they 
were welcomed by the governor, Sir William Berkeley, and 
other friends of the King. For many years they continued 
to come, and the population of Virginia increased from fifteen 
thousand in 1648 to thirty-eight thousand in 1670. 

The Cavaliers, as the followers of Charles were called, were 
one of the most remarkable groups of immigrants that ever 
came to America. They were mainly substantial country 
gentlemen, well educated and of superior ability. Among 
them were the Lees, the Washingtons, the Randolphs, the 
Pendletons, the Madisons, the Monroes, the Marshalls, — 
names closely associated with the making of our country. 

60. The Navigation Acts. — In order to build up English 
commerce and collect revenues, the government in England 
sought to prevent other nations from trading with the colo- 
nies. Colonial goods were to be carried in English ships 
and to English ports. If other nations wanted these goods, 
they could buy them only in England. At the same time 
the colonies must buy all their European goods in England 
and have them taken to America in English vessels. The 
laws which thus restricted colonial commerce were known 
as the Navigation Acts and were put in force in 1660 and 
1663. Tobacco was already falling in price because of the 
vast increase in the area of cultivation. The Navigation 
Acts, by cutting olF the market for Virginia tobacco in Hoi- 



THE SOUTHERN COLONIES 57 

land and other countries in Europe, further lowered the 
price. The loss to the men of Virginia was very great, for 
tobacco was their chief crop ; many fell into debt and much 
ill-feeling was aroused against the government. 

61. Bacon's Rebellion. — An Indian uprising in 1676 
caused the death of thirty-six whites. When the governor 
refused to punish the savages, the people of Virginia, under 
the leadership of Nathaniel Bacon, took the matter into 
their own hands and inflicted a severe defeat on the Indians. 
But because Bacon had acted without official authority. 
Governor Berkeley declared him a rebel and set out to 
arrest him. Bacon captured Jamestown, burned part of it, 
and seemed on the point of overthrowing the government 
of Berkeley, when he was taken ill with fever and died in 
October, 1676. The governor returned to Jamestown and 
took revenge on the friends of Bacon by hanging thirteen 
leaders of the revolt. The story is told that when William 
Drummond, one of the Bacon leaders, was captured and 
brought before him, Berkeley said : " Mr. Drummond, you 
are welcome. I am more glad to see you than any man in 
Virginia. Mr. Drummond, you shall be hanged in half an 
hour." 

Berkeley was soon recalled to England. The governors 
who followed him did little to pacify the colony and the spirit 
of rebellion long remained among the Virginians. 

Maryland 

62. The Maryland Charter. — When the London Com- 
pany lost its charter in 1624, the king took possession of its 
ungranted lands as the property of the crown (Sec. 58). 
When, therefore, George Calvert, the first Lord Baltimore, 
applied to Charles I for a grant of land in the old territory 



58 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 




of the company, the King felt free to make it. George Cal- 
vert died before the charter was issued and the grant was 
made to his son, Cecil Calvert, second Lord Baltimore. 

The territory of the grant was to be known as Maryland 
in honor of the queen, Henrietta Maria, and was to include 

the present states of Maryland, 
Delaware, and a strip of southern 
Pennsylvania. Lord Baltimore 
and his heirs were given ownership 
of the land and extensive political 
powers. The proprietor could 
appoint the governor and other 
civil and military officers ; he could 
coin money, levy import and ex- 
port duties, and make war and 
peace. He was empowered to call 
an assembly of the people or their 
representatives to make laws for 
the colony, laws to which the king's assent was not neces- 
sary. Moreover, the king gave up all right of taxation 
within the province. 

63. Position of English Catholics. — In asking for the 
Maryland grant Lord Baltimore, who was a convert to the 
Catholic faith, wanted to establish a refuge for his co-re- 
ligionists. At that time Catholics in England suffered many 
hardships. They were excluded from the learned professions, 
from public office, and from the army and navy. Priests 
were banished from the country and the death penalty was 
prescribed if they returned. Well-to-do Catholics could not 
travel over five miles from their estates without license and 
could be fined twenty pounds a month for not attending the 
services of the State Church. The king might seize two 



George Calvert, Lord 
Baltimore 



THE SOUTHERN COLONIES 59 

thirds of a Catholic's lands and hold them till the owner 
conformed to the Established Church. A fine of a hundred 
pounds might be inflicted for sending a child out of the 
country to be educated, or for omitting to have a child bap- 
tized in accordance with Protestant forms. 

64. The First Settlement in Maryland. — Cecil Calvert 
took up the work of colonization and in October, 1633, dis- 
patched to America two vessels with about two hundred 
fifty persons on board. His brother, Leonard Calvert, 
was sent out as governor. With the expedition were two 
Jesuit priests, Fathers White and Altman. The ships en- 
tered the Potomac in the spring of 1634 and a landing was 
made on St. Clement's Island, where on March 25 Father 
White celebrated Mass. A site for a settlement was found 
at an Indian village about nine miles from the mouth of the 
St. George River, a tributary of the Potomac. Here land 
was purchased from the natives and the place renamed 
St. Mary's. The location proved healthful and the colony 
escaped the diseases that had killed so many at Jamestown. 
Land was granted to individuals, and fields of corn and to- 
bacco were planted at once. Thus the colony escaped a 
" starving time." 

The colony's relations with the Indians were friendly at 
the outset and generally remained so. The conversion of 
the natives was undertaken by the priests. Father White 
compiled a grammar and dictionary of the Piscataway 
tongue and wrote a catechism in the same language. 

65. The Toleration Act. — In his instructions to his 
brother when sending him out to America, Lord Baltimore 
counseled the avoidance of religious controversy and urged 
him " to treat the Protestants with as much mildness as 
justice will require." This policy of religious toleration 



6o HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

was formally enacted into law by the Maryland Assembly. 
In an act passed in 1649 it was provided that no person " pro- 
fessing to believe in Jesus Christ shall from henceforth, be 
any ways troubled, molested, or discountenanced for, or in 
respect of, his or her religion, nor in the free exercise thereof 
within this province . . . nor any ways compelled to the 
belief or exercise of any other religion against his or her con- 
sent." Jews and other non-Christians were not included in 
the scope of the act. An attempt was also made in the act 
to discourage religious bitterness by providing a fine of ten 
shillings or a whipping for any one who should call another 
" an heretic. Schismatic, Idolator, Puritan, Independent, 
Presbyterian, popish priest, Jesuit, Jesuited papist," or any 
one of half a dozen other terms of somewhat similar import. 

66. Civil War in Maryland. — The great civil war in 
England between King and Parliament had an echo in the 
province of Maryland. Governor Calvert favored the King's 
party, though Lord Baltimore at home seems not to have 
been zealous in the royal cause. Under the leadership of 
Captain Richard Ingle, who had a commission from Parlia- 
ment, a revolt took place in Maryland in 1645. The gov- 
ernor was driven out and the town of St. Mary's plundered. 
Father White was taken to London in chains, where he was 
indicted as a returned Jesuit, but escaped on the plea that 
his return was involuntary. After two years Leonard Cal- 
vert was restored as governor, but he died soon after and his 
brother thought it prudent to appoint a Protestant governor, 
Captain William Stone, a Virginian. 

67. Toleration Act Repealed. — In 1652 the government 
of the Commonwealth in England took the political contro' 
of Maryland out of Lord Baltimore's hands, but left him his 
property rights. The men who now came into control in 



THE SOUTHERN COLONIES 6l 

the province repealed the Toleration Act and passed a new 
measure which provided among other things, " That none 
who profess and exercise the Papistic, commonly known as 
the Roman Catholic, religion can be protected in this prov- 
ince." Adherents of the Church of England were also 
denied the protection of the laws. Chapels and missions 
were destroyed, and one only of the four priests who had 
labored in the provmce was allowed to remain. 

Lord Baltimore's government was restored to him in 1658 
and the Toleration Act was again put into force. The colony 
now grew rapidly, in spite of political differences between the 
proprietor and the colonists. The Baltimore family retained 
its rights until the English Revolution of 1689. That move- 
ment, which drove James II from the English throne, also 
put an end to Maryland as a Catholic enterprise. The 
Baltimores again lost the right of governing the province ; 
the English Church was set up as the official church, and the 
unjust English laws against Catholics were put in force in 
Maryland. In 171 5 the fifth Lord Baltimore, having re- 
nounced the Catholic faith, was given control of the province 
which then remained in the family until the colonies declared 
their independence. The laws concerning religion remained 
in force down to Revolutionary times, and many Catholics 
sought refuge under the milder rule of Pennsylvania and 
in the newer settlements west of the Alleghanies. 

The Carolinas and Georgia 

68. The Grant of Carolina. — - In 1663 Charles II gave to 
a number of his friends a vast territory south of Virginia. 
By a charter of that year and one of two years later, he 
granted them the lands between 29° and 36° 30' north lati- 
tude, extending from the Atlantic to the Pacific. The 



62 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 





Charles II 



powers given the proprietors of Carolina, as the region was 
called, were similar to those given Lord Baltimore in Mary- 
land (Sec. 62). Soon after receiving 
their lands the proprietors undertook 
to colonize them, but it was not until 
1670 that their first permanent settle- 
ment was made. In that year men 
from England and the island of Bar- 
bados established themselves near 
the present site of Charleston, South 
Carolina. 

Before the Carolina charter was 

granted, men from Virginia had made 

two settlements, one in 1653, the 

other in 1662, on Albemarle Sound 

within the region which later became known as North 

Carolina. 

69. The Carolinas Become Royal Provinces. — The 
northern and southern settlements continued for many years 
to be separated from each other by two hundred miles of 
unoccupied territory, and in 171 3 the province was definitely 
divided into North and South Carolina, each with its own 
government. Soon afterwards difficulties with their colo- 
nists made the proprietors anxious to sell their interests. 
The land of most of the proprietors was purchased by the 
crown, and after 1729 both the Carolinas were governed as 
royal provinces. 

Slavery grew rapidly in South Carolina, where the planta- 
tion system flourished. Rice had early been introduced 
into that colony and soon became the chief product. Its 
cultivation led to a great demand for negro labor and, by 
the middle of the eighteenth century, South Carohna had 



THE SOUTHERN COLONIES 



63 



twice as many slaves as freemen. Conditions were different 
in North Carolina, which was largely a region of small farms. 
Its chief products for export were naval stores — tar, pitch, 
and turpentine. 

70. The Founding of Georgia. — The southernmost of 
the original thirteen colonies was established in 1733 by 
James Oglethorpe and his associates, who founded Savannah 
in that year. They were interested 
in relieving the sufferings of poor 
persons in England who were im- 
prisoned for debt, and their first 
colonists were of that class. The 
King, George II, who wanted an 
outpost against the Spaniards in 
Florida, granted to Oglethorpe and 
his friends a charter for the prov- 
ince of Georgia, which was to in- 
clude the country lying between 
the Savannah and Altamaha rivers. 
Oglethorpe had to spend much of his time fighting the 
Spaniards. The dangers from this source kept the colony 
from growing very rapidly, and its founders, becoming 
discouraged, sold their rights to the King. From 1751 
Georgia was a royal province. 




s<4 

James Oglethorpe 



authorize 

burgess 

heretic 



Vocabulary- 
indenture 
malaria 
Parliament 



proprietor 

representative 

toleration 



Map Exercises 

I. Mark out on the Atlantic coast the grants to the London and the 
Plymouth companies. 



64 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

2. Locate : Jamestown, St. Clement's Island, St. Mary's, Charleston, 
Savannah, Island of Barbados. 

Questions 

I. What privileges had settlers in colonies founded by the London 
and Plymouth companies ? 2. State three difficulties which at first 
made Jamestown a failure. 3. What mistakes were made by the 
leaders before John Smith .? 4. Give the date of the second charter to 
London Company. 5. State the difference between a free laborer and an 
indentured servant. Were indentured servants desirable members of 
society ^ 6. Give two significant events of the year 1619. 7. What is 
the relation of the Virginia House of Burgesses to our national life ? 
8. How and why did Virginia become a royal province ? 9. What was 
the king's attitude toward self-government in the province .? 10. In 
what great struggle was England engaged during the first half of the 
seventeenth century ? How did this struggle affect the fortunes of Virginia ? 
II. Why did the Navigation Acts work hardship in the colony ? 12. Give 
the cause for Bacon's Rebellion. 13. Name the first proprietor of 
Maryland and state his powers. 14. How were Catholics persecuted in 
England ? 15. How were the mistakes of Jamestown avoided in the 
founding of St. Mary's.^ 16. How and why was the colony made anti- 
Catholic ? 17. In what two respects is the early history of the Carolinas 
like that of Maryland ? 18. What products made the wealth of the 
Carolinas ? Why did slavery flourish in South Carolina ? 19. State 
the purpose of the founders of Georgia. 20. Who were their neighbors 
on the south ^ 



CHAPTER VI 
THE NEW ENGLAND COLONIES 

Plymouth 

71. Early Attempts at Settlement. — The charter which 
authorized the London Company to colonize Virginia, also, 
as we have seen (Sec. 47), authorized the Plymouth Company 
to found colonies on the North Atlantic coast of what is 
now the United States. The same year that Jamestown 
was founded (1607), the Plymouth Company sent out an 
expedition, which made a settlement at the mouth of the 
Kennebec River. The settlers were unprepared for the 
severe winter of that region. George Popham, the leader, 
died, and the discouraged colonists returned to England 
in 1608. After this failure, no attempt at settlement was 
made for some years, but English vessels continued to visit 
the north coast for fishing and trading with the Indians. 
Captain John Smith took part in a voyage to the Plymouth 
Company's lands in 1614. He made a map of the region 
and was the first to call it New England. 

The success of the Jamestown settlement revived the inter- 
est of the Plymouth Company in colonization. In 1620 
some of the members obtained a new charter, by which 
they were given all the land of North America between the 
fortieth and forty-eighth parallels and from the Atlantic 

F 65 



66 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 




Captain John Smith's Map of New England 



THE NEW ENGLAND COLONIES 67 

to the Pacific. The company was now called " the Council 
for New England." Before it was able to take up the work 
of colonization, a permanent settlement was made in New 
England by a wholly diflPerent group of EngHshmen known 
as the Pilgrims. 

72. The Separatists. — To understand why the Pilgrims 
came to New England it will be helpful to take a brief glance 
at the religious situation in England at the time. In the 
year 1559 Queen Elizabeth had Parliament pass a law, known 
as the Act of Uniformity, which was intended to make un- 
lawful in England any other public worship than that of 
the official Protestant Church. The act was aimed at 
Catholics, but its provisions soon affected certain classes 
of Protestants who were dissatisfied with the ceremonies 
and government of the English Church. They wanted to 
do away with the sign of the cross in Baptism, with the 
ring in the marriage ceremony, and with the minister's 
surplice. Some wanted to discontinue the Book of Common 
Prayer, which contained the order of the public service of 
the Church, and to abolish the office of bishop. This grow- 
ing body of Protestants, dissatisfied with the Established 
Church, became known as Puritans, of whom there were two 
main groups. The first wanted to remain inside the Church 
but to have it accept their ideas ; these were known as 
Low-churchmen. The second group wished to set up in- 
dependent religious societies and to separate themselves from 
the Church ; they were known as Independents or Separa- 
tists. 

73. The Wanderings of the Separatists. — Severely per- 
secuted in England, many of the Separatists fled to Holland. 
Among the exiles was a congregation from the English 
village of Scrooby, the members of which settled at Leyden. 



68 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 



After twelve years among the Dutch, the leaders of the 
congregation decided to seek a new home in America. 

They secured from the London Company a grant of land 
and a charter of government, and from some English mer- 
chants money to fit out an expedition. 

74. The Founding of Plymouth. — In the summer of 
1620, having gone from Holland to England, the Pilgrims, 




The Mayflower 

to the number of about one hundred, set sail in the May- 
flower from Plymouth. Since they had a land grant from 
the London Company, it was their intention to reach some 
point south of the Hudson within that company's territory, 
but they lost their way in the stormy weather and in Novem- 
ber reached the coast of New England. The winter was 
already upon them, and they decided to make a permanent 
home in the region where accident had brought them. 
After exploring the coast, they found a suitable harbor 
and a stream of fresh water at a place called Plymouth on 



THE NEW ENGLAND COLONIES 



69 



Captain John Smith's map (Sec. 71). Here they landed, 
December 21, 1620, and early in January began the erection 
of places of shelter. The winter was severe and half their 
number died before spring, but in spite of the great suffering 
none wished to return when the Mayflower sailed for Eng- 
land in April. 

75. The Mayflower Compact. — The Pilgrims, having 
decided to settle within the territory of the Council for New 
England, had no legal government, as their charter had 
been granted by the London Company. Before leaving 
the Mayflower, therefore, they had signed an agreement 
to obey whatever regulations " shall be thought most meet 
and convenient for the general good of the colony." John 
Carver was elected governor. He died the next spring 
and William Bradford, who has left a history of the colony, 
was chosen to succeed him. Bradford was annually re- 
elected to the governor- 
ship until his death in 
1657, except for five 
years when he refused 
the office. 

76. Why the Colony 
Grew. — Almost from the 
beginning the colony got 
on well with tl^e natives, 
whose numbers had re- 
cently been greatly de- 
creased by a pestilence. 
The governor early con- 
cluded a treaty of peace 

and friendship with Massasoit, the chief of the Wampa- 
noags. The colony was taught by friendly natives how 




Plymouth 



JO HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

to cultivate Indian corn, and a crop was harvested the 
first year. 

The colonists started out with a system of labor in com- 
mon and a common store as at Jamestown (Sec. 49), but 
in the third year, when a famine seemed likely, each family 
was given a tract of land to cultivate. The appeal to pri- 
vate interest was successful and famine never again threat- 
ened the colony. 

Massachusetts Bay Colony 

77. The Founding of Salem. — It has already been noted 
that English fishermen visited the New England coast even 
before the Plymouth settlement was made. A company 
of merchants, mostly from Dorchester, England, was in- 
terested in these fisheries and in 1623 decided to establish 
a colony in New England. A settlement, made at Cape 
Ann, flourished for three years, when the Dorchester com- 
pany broke up and decided to take the colonists home. 
However, one of the partners, John White, wanted to keep 
the settlement going and prevailed upon five of the colonists 
to remain. The location at Cape Ann was unfavorable, 
and the little colony took up its residence on the present 
site of Salem. 

White succeeded in interesting other merchants in his 
enterprise and formed the Company for Massachusetts Bay 
or the Massachusetts Company, as it is often called. In 
March, 1628, the company bought from the Council for 
New England the country between the Merrimac and the 
Charles rivers and west to the Pacific Ocean. A few months 
later a party of emigrants was sent out under John Endicott. 
There was some trouble between the newcomers and the 
earlier settlers, but it was soon adjusted and Endicott, in 



THE NEW ENGLAND COLONIES 



71 




John Endicott 



memory of the event, called the place 

Salem, the Hebrew word for peace. 
The next year (1629) Charles I 

gave the Massachusetts Company a 

charter which confirmed its title to 

the land it had bought and gave it 

authority to govern its settlers. The 

company appointed Endicott governor 

and during the summer sent out 

about four hundred persons to the 

colony at Salem. 
78. The Cambridge Agreement. — 

Most of the members of the Massachusetts Company were 

Puritans. Just at this moment church affairs in England 

were in the hands of Bishop Laud, their powerful enemy. 

The king supported the Bishop and sent many Puritan 

leaders to prison. Under these 
circumstances some of the 
leaders of the Massachusetts 
Company began to think of 
their lands in New England as 
a place of refuge. At a meet- 
ing at Cambridge in August, 
1629, they agreed to emigrate 
to America with their families 
and to take the company's 
charter with them. Those of- 
ficers of the company that did 

not want to leave England resigned and new men were 

chosen. John Winthrop w^as elected president and the next 

year led a great expedition to Massachusetts, where as head 

of the company he was also governor of the colony. 




John Winthrop 



72 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 



79. The Puritan Migration. — The removal of the com- 
pany to America was followed by a great Puritan migration. 
Economic distress in England, as well as political and reli- 



EAREY 
NEW ENGLAND 




SCALE OF MILES 



gious reasons, urged many to come. In 1630 two thousand 
persons arrived in Massachusetts and many towns were 
established, among them Boston, Dorchester, and Watertown. 



THE NEW ENGLAND COLONIES 73 

There was much suffering among the newcomers and many 
died of disease and exposure, but the tide of immigration 
continued, with shght interruptions, for the next eleven 
years, and the population rose to about fifteen thousand 
persons. With the outbreak of the civil war in England 
in 1642 the movement ceased, and many of the Puritans 
from Massachusetts returned to take part in the struggle 
against the king. 

80. The Government of the Colony. — The charter 
gave the control of the colony to the stockholders or freemen 
of the company. They were to choose the governor and 
his council and to make regulations for the conduct of the 
colony. Of these stockholders only twelve came to America 
and four of these soon died, leaving the government of the 
entire colony in the hands of eight men. In 1634, however, 
the people were given a voice in the government and the 
towns were permitted to send representatives to the General 
Court, as the legislature was called. The right of voting 
was limited to church members. 

Later, in 1641, the people adopted a code of written laws 
known as the Body of Liberties. By its provisions many 
valuable personal rights were secured to the people, includ- 
ing freedom of speech and freedom from arbitrary arrest 
and punishment. 

Connecticut and Rhode Island 

81. The Foundmg of Connecticut. — Men from Massa- 
chusetts were early attracted to the valley of the Connect- 
icut River by its fertile soil and the opportunities it offered 
for engaging in the fur trade. Massachusetts traders were 
in this region as early as 1633, and three years later a colony 



74 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 




from Cambridge of about one hundred persons, men, women, 
and children, led by the Reverend Thomas Hooker, settled 
at Hartford. Other groups soon fol- 
lowed, making settlements at Windsor 
and Wethersfield. 

A colony was established at New 
Haven in 1638 by Theophilus Eaton 
and the Reverend John Davenport. 
They proposed to take the Bible for 
their guide in political as well as in 
religious matters. Trial by jury, not 
being found in the Scriptures, was dis- 
Early Settlements in pensed with, and political power was 

THE Connecticut kept securely .in the hands of church 

Valley. 1 

members. 

In 1663 the Connecticut government secured a charter 
from Charles H, and all the settlements in the present state 
of Connecticut, including that at New Haven, were united 
under one government. 

82. The Founding of Rhode Island by Roger Williams. 
— The Massachusetts government, as we have seen, was 
restricted to church members (Sec. 80). It was freedom 
for their own religion, not toleration of other religions, that 
had brought the Puritans to America. When, therefore, 
Roger Williams, pastor of the church at Salem, began to 
preach against the forms of worship used by the other 
ministers in the colony, he had trouble with the authorities. 
He denied the right of the Massachusetts government to 
punish men for not attending the church services and was 
reported also as saying that the Indians were the rightful 
owners of the soil of Massachusetts and the colonists were, 
therefore, robbers. 



THE NEW ENGLAND COLONIES 75 

For these reasons the authorities decided to drive him 
from the colony. He escaped to the Narragansett Indians, 
from whom he secured a tract of land, and in the spring of 
1636 founded the town of Providence, in the present state 
of Rhode Island, where he was soon joined by other persons 
who believed as he did. 

A few years later (1638) Mrs. Anne Hutchinson, who had 
also been driven from Massachusetts for religious reasons, 
settled with a group of her followers at Portsmouth, and 
the next year some of her people settled at Newport. In 
1663 the Rhode Island settlements received from Charles II 
a charter which confirmed their land titles and assured 
them the right of self-government. 

Religious toleration was the rule in Rhode Island from 
the begmning, and this wise arrangement was formally 
made a part of the colony's law^s by the charter of 1663. 
Unfortunately, the colony later departed from its early 
attitude of tolerance and after 1719 Catholics as well as 
Jews were excluded from citizenship. 

83. Massachusetts Expands to the North. — English 
settlements had been made as early as 1623 on the coasts 
of what are now New Hampshire and Maine. Nearly all of 
this region had been granted to Sir Ferdinando Gorges and 
Captain John Mason in 1622. Later they divided it between 
them. Mason taking the territory west of the Piscataqua, 
which he called New Hampshire in memory of his own 
county Hampshire in England, and Gorges taking the 
lands east of the Piscataqua to which, for some reason now 
unknown, the name of Maine was given. Captain Mason 
died in 1635, and his heirs took no interest in the settlements 
that had been made. A few years later Gorges also died, 
leaving Maine without a head. Massachusetts, which 



-jG HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

claimed much of the territory to the north, now took ad- 
vantage of these circumstances to extend her authority 
over New Hampshire and Maine. New Hampshire was 
several times separated from Massachusetts and finally 
in 175 1 became a royal province, which it remained until 
the Revolution. It was not until 1820 that Maine ceased to 
be a part of Massachusetts. 

84. The New England Federation. — The advance of 
the whites to the west aroused the resentment of the Pequot 
Indians, who occupied the central part of the present state 
of Connecticut, and in 1637 war broke out. Men from 
Massachusetts and Connecticut, together with some friendly 
Indians, fell upon the Pequots and in two engagements 
almost completely wiped the tribe out of existence. 

After the war, there was talk of a union between the two 
colonies that had joined in the conflict, but the matter was 
dropped. Soon the Connecticut colonists had trouble 
with the Dutch from New Amsterdam, now New York. 
The Dutch had established a trading post on the Connect- 
icut before the arrival of the Massachusetts settlers, and 
they resented English interference with their fur trade. 
Indian tribes on the north and west were also giving trouble 
to Connecticut, and in 1642 that colony renewed its sug- 
gestion for a union with Massachusetts. 

The next year (1643) Articles of Confederation were agreed 
to by the four colonies of Massachusetts, Connecticut, Plym- 
outh, and New Haven. This confederation, which lasted 
forty years, was important because it showed the colonies 
that they could unite in times of danger. 

85. The Treatment of Quakers in Massachusetts. — ■ 
It was the policy of Massachusetts to maintain religious 
uniformity in the colony. Therefore, when in 1656 two 



THE NEW ENGLAND COLONIES 



n 



members of the sect of Quakers appeared at Boston to 
preach their doctrines, they were banished. When others 
persisted in coming, the Puritan leaders became alarmed and 
made provision that the death penalty should be inflicted 
on Quakers returning to the colony after once being banished. 
In accordance with this law three Quakers were hanged. 
Other colonies treated the Quakers harshly, but it was only 
in Massachusetts that they were subjected to capital punish- 
ment. 

86. King Philip's War. — The growth of the New England 
colonies pressed the Indians farther and farther from the 




WIIXIAMS ENSBJtVtNgrtfo., N. 



coast and showed the natives that they would soon lose 
their hunting grounds. In 1675 Philip, chief of the Wam- 
panoags, son of Massasoit, became the leader of a general 
attack on the New England settlements. Frontier towns 



78 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

were burned and many persons put to death. After nearly 
two years of war, Philip was slain, the power of the Indians 
broken, and settlements in the interior were made safe. But 
the colonists had lost heavily. Six hundred white men 
were killed in battle, thirteen towns were wiped out, and 
famine threatened for a time on account of the destruction 
of the crops. 

87. Massachusetts Loses Its Charter (1684). — For a 
long while the King, who was busy with affairs at home, 
did not interfere with the Massachusetts colony. But from 
time to time complaints were made against the colony ; 
the friends of Roger Williams, of Mrs. Hutchinson, and of 
the Quakers stirred up opposition in England for the Boston 
Puritans. Members of the English Established Church 
complained that their form of worship was not permitted 
in the colony. The King was angry because two of the 
judges who had condemned his father to death found shelter 
in Massachusetts. The English merchants and shipowners 
complained that foreign ships and cargoes were received 
at Boston in violation of the Navigation Acts (Sec. 60). 
For these reasons the King directed his attorney-general to 
bring suit for the annulment of the charter. The suit was 
successful and in 1684 the Massachusetts Bay Company 
and the government that was established by it ceased to exist. 

88. The Rule of Andres. — Charles II died before the 
arrangements for the new government of Massachusetts 
were completed. His brother James II, who succeeded 
him, decided to unite New York and New England under 
a single government. More efficient enforcement of the 
Navigation Acts and better military defense against a 
threatened invasion of the French from Canada were among 
the reasons for this union. The King appointed Sir Edmund 



THE NEW ENGLAND COLONIES 



79 




Sir Edmund Andros 



.^^A 



Andros governor of the united colonies with authority to 
set aside, b}^ force if necessary, the charters of Rhode Island 
and Connecticut. These last-named colonies accepted the 
rule of Andros, though he did not get possession of their 
charters and in fact did not seriously 
interfere with their affairs. 

In Massachusetts, however, he de- 
stroyed self-government and undertook 
to make laws and levy taxes without 
the consent of the people. 

In the third year of Andros' admin- 
istration the English revolution of 1689 
drove James II from his throne. The 
people of Boston and neighboring towns 
revolted, seized the governor and put 
him into prison, where he remained for 
three years. They proclaimed the old charter in force and 
sent an agent to England to get the new king, William III, 
to confirm their action. The King refused, but in 1691 
granted a new charter by which Massachusetts became a 
royal province. The King reserved the right to appoint 
the governor and to veto laws passed by the colonial legis- 
lature. The Plymouth colony was added to Massachusetts, 
whose right to Maine was also recognized. 

89. The Witchcraft Delusion. — Shortly after the over- 
throw of the And'os government in Massachusetts, there 
broke out at Salem the notorious witchcraft delusion. There 
had recently been executions for witchcraft in England 
and much had been printed concerning witchcraft and the 
best methods of detecting it. The children of Samuel Parris, 
a minister of Salem, got hold of a book on the art of witch- 
craft and learned to ape the actions of bewitched persons 



8o HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

as described in the book. They then complained that cer- 
tain persons in the village whom they disliked had bewitched 
them. Their stories created a panic in the minds of Salem 
people and the new governor, Sir William Phips, set up a 
special court to investigate the hundreds of cases of witch- 
craft that were reported. Before the panic ran its course 
(September, 1692) nineteen persons had been convicted 
and hanged, and one was pressed to death for refusing to 
enter a plea. Fifty-five confessed witches had been par- 
doned and a hundred fifty others were awaiting trial. 

Other colonies suffered somewhat from the same delusion. 
Cases were reported from Virginia and Pennsylvania and 
an execution for witchcraft took place in Maryland. 

Vocabulary 

delusion legislature 

democratic qualification 

federation witchcraft 

Map Exercises 

Locate : Leyden, Plymouth, Cape Ann, Salem, New Haven, Provi- 
dence, Merrimac River, Charles River, Piscataqua River. 

Questions 

I. How did the New England colonies get their name ? 2. Give the 
date and name of the first permanent settlement in New England. 
3. Who were the Separatists ? 4. What features made the Mayflower 
compact democratic ? 5. What was the purpose of the Massachusetts 
Bay Colony? 6. What new element was added by the Puritans under 
Winthrop ? 7. In what ways were Connecticut and Massachusetts 
related ? 8. From what source did Roger Williams get his title to 
Rhode Island } What was his purpose ? 9. What limits were placed 
on religious toleration in Rhode Island ? 10. How did it happen that 
Maine and New Hampshire were joined to Massachusetts.'' 1 1. What 



THE NEW ENGLAND COLONIES 8i 

motives finally led to a union between the New England colonies ? 
12. Give four reasons why the charter of the Massachusetts Bay Company 
was annulled in 1684. 13. Over what colonies was Sir Edmund Andros 
governor? 14. How did he show his tyrannical rule? 15. How was 
his tyranny finally overthrown ? 16. Can you explain the witchcraft 
delusion ? 



CHAPTER VII 



THE MIDDLE COLONIES 



New York 

90. The Discovery of the Hudson (1609). — The greatest 
of American cities owes its origin to the Dutch, who in 
the early years of the seventeenth century were, hke the 
EngHsh and French, anxious to find a new waterway to 

India and China. Henry Hudson, 
an Englishman in the employ of 
the Dutch East India Company, 
entered in August, 1609, the river 
which now bears his name. Search- 
ing for a passage to the Pacific 
he sailed his ship, the Half Moo7i, 
up the Hudson past the present 
site of Albany. He established 
friendly relations with one of the 
tribes of the Iroquois Indians a 
few months after Champlain had 
engaged in a conflict with another Iroquois tribe a short 
distance to the north on Lake Champlain (Sec. 27). The 
next year Dutch fur traders appeared on the Hudson and 
centers of trade were soon established on Manhattan Island 
and near Albany, at the head of navigation for the sea-going 
vessels of the time. 

82 




Henry Hudson 



THE MIDDLE COLONIES 83 

91. Settlers on Manhattan Island. — Settlers came to 
Manhattan Island in 1623 under the direction of the Dutch 
West India Company, which had been organized two years 
before. The early settlers were largely from the Walloon 
provinces of The Netherlands, — Belgians they would now 
be called. Besides settling Manhattan Island, the colonists 
of 1623 made settlements on the Connecticut and Delaware 
rivers. Three years later Peter Minuit arrived as governor 
of the Dutch possessions in America. He bought the 
island of Manhattan from the Indians with twenty-four 
dollars' worth of goods, and began to organize his govern- 
ment and build a fort on the present site of New York. 
The colony came to be known as New Netherland, and 
the town as New Amsterdam. 

92. The Growth of the Colony under the Patroon System. 
— The fur trade paid well but settlers did not come in large 
numbers. In order to get colonists without cost to itself, 
the company offered an extensive tract of land to each of 
its members who in four years should bring at his own 
expense fifty families to New Netherland. He would also 
receive the title of patroon and have considerable powers 
of government over the people on his estate both in civil 
and criminal matters. The company also undertook to 
furnish negro slaves as laborers. Many members of the 
company hastened to take advantage of the offer and the 
best lands along the Hudson were soon occupied. 

93. War with the Indians. — In New Netherland, as 
elsewhere in America, the extension of the white settlements 
led to conflicts with the natives. As soon as the hunting 
grounds of the Indian were threatened, he had to fight or 
starve. The conflict with the Dutch was hastened by the 
massacre in 1642 of one hundred ten Algonquin Indians 



84 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 



who had taken refuge from the Iroquois, the outrage being 
committed across the Hudson from New Amsterdam by 
Dutch soldiers under orders from Governor WiUiam Kieft. 
The fighting continued at intervals for nearly four years, 
and after severe losses on both sides, peace was made in 
1646. It was during this war that the settlers, in order to 
protect their homes and fields, built a strong fence or wall 
across Manhattan Island near the present Wall Street. 

94. Governor Stu5rvesant's Rule. — The colonists blamed 
Governor Kieft for the losses caused by the war, and in an- 
swer to their petition a new gov- 
ernor, Peter Stuyvesant, was sent 
over in 1647. 

The position of governor of New 
Netherland was very difficult at 
this time, for the Dutch colony, 
besides being an important trading 
center, was becoming a meeting- 
place for the discontented of other 
colonies and of Europe. Father 
Jogues, who visited New Amster- 
dam in 1643 after his rescue from 
the Iroquois (Sec. 41), found four 
hundred persons in the town and 
eighteen languages spoken there. 
Peter Stuyvesant Drunkenness and ^disorder were 

common, and the most vigorous efforts of Stuyvesant were 
unable to cope with the situation. 

He added to his troubles by an attempt to suppress reli- 
gious meetings other than those of the Dutch Reformed 
Church. A penalty of a hundred pounds was prescribed 
for a clergyman holding a forbidden meeting and twenty- 




THE MIDDLE COLONIES 



85 



five pounds for a layman attending. His wrath fell heavily 
on the Quakers, some of whom were tortured cruelly. 

95. The End of Dutch Rule in New Amsterdam (1664). 
— The territory occupied by the Dutch colony was long 
claimed by the English. Besides, its location offered many 
opportunities for the violation of the Navigation Acts, as 
goods from Europe or the Indies could readily be smuggled 




A Dutch Cottage in New Amsterdam 



into Virginia or New England from New Amsterdam. Great 
quantities of tobacco were taken from Virginia to Europe 
by the Dutch, a fact which interfered with the profits of 
English merchants and deprived the English government 
of large revenues. 

With these facts in mind Charles II, in 1664, granted the 
territory between the Delaware and the Connecticut rivers 



86 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

to his brother James, Duke of York, with the right to govern 
it. A few months later Colonel Richard Nicolls, appointed 
deputy-governor of his new lands by the duke, appeared 
before New Amsterdam and demanded the surrender of 
the colony. Stuyvesant declared his intention to fight, 
but the leading men of the town saw that resistance was 
hopeless, and the place was surrendered without bloodshed. 
New Netherland was now called New York, and New 
Amsterdam received the same name. 

96. The Relations between the English and the Iroquois. 
— In 1673, while England and Holland were at war. New 
York was seized by the Dutch, who named it New Orange ; 
but, by the treaty of peace fifteen months later, the prov- 
ince was restored to the English. Edmund Andros, who 
later played an unpopular part in the history of Massachu- 
setts (Sec. 88), now became governor of New York. The 
principal work of Andros was his treaty of friendship 
with the Iroquois Confederacy, or the Five Nations. He 
estabhshed an Indian Commission, with headquarters 
at Albany, and furnished the Iroquois with muskets and am- 
munition. His friendship for these powerful tribes proved 
of value to the English settlements, for it was the Iroquois 
who did much to prevent the French from taking possession 
of northern and western New York. 

97. Governor Thomas Dongan. — Andros was succeeded 
in 1681 by Colonel Thomas Dongan, an Irishman who later 
became Earl of Limerick. The Duke of York had become 
convinced that the province would be more prosperous and 
would yield him a larger revenue if the people had self-gov- 
ernment, and Governor Dongan brought with him authority 
from the Duke to establish a popular law-making assembly. 
The £rst meeting of the new body took place October 17, 



THE MIDDLE COLONIES 87 

1683. It formulated a "Charter of Liberties," providing for 
freedom of worship for all Christians and popular control 
of taxation. Meetings of the legislature were to be held at 
least every third year. 

The prosperous state of affairs under Dongan's rule did 
not last long. The Duke of York, who became king as 
James II, in 1685, joined New York and New England and 
appointed Sir Edmund Andros governor of the united col- 
onies. The New York Assembly then ceased to exist. 

98. The Rule of Leisler. — When the news arrived in 
New York in 1689 that James II had been succeeded by 
William III, an uprising in favor of the new king took place. 
It was led by Jacob Leisler, a New York merchant, who 
remained in control of affairs for two years, when a new 
governor was sent out from England. Leisler, by his arbi- 
trary rule, had made many enemies and they poisoned the 
mind of the new governor against him. He was accused of 
treason and hanged because he did not deliver up the fort 
on Manhattan Island as readily as the new governor wished. 

99. The Later Governinent of New York. — A represent- 
ative assembly was again set up in New York in 1691, which 
often came into conflict with the royal governors sent out 
from England. Quarrels over taxation and the expenditure 
of the colony's money developed a spirit of opposition to 
the English government that lasted to Revolutionary times. 

The representative government, set up in 1691, departed 
from the spirit of tolerance that had existed in the time of 
Governor Dongan. A fierce anti-Catholic spirit developed 
during Leister's rule and continued in later years. 

The exercise of the Catholic religion was forbidden in 
the colony. An English act of Parliament " for further 
preventing the extension of Popery " was adopted in New 



88 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

York and Massachusetts. It aimed to expel priests frora 
the colony and provided Hfe imprisonment for any that 
remained. A bounty of one hundred pounds was offered 
for the apprehension of any priest. Life imprisonment 
was also decreed for keeping a Catholic school. 

New Jersey 

100. How New Jersey Was Settled. — When the Duke 
of York in 1664 received the grant of New Netherland from 




Sir George Carteret Landing in New Jersey 

his royal brother, he gave a portion of his new lands to Lord 
John Berkeley and Sir George Carteret. The duke's gift 
comprised what is now New Jersey, a name given to the 
land in honor of Carteret's gallant defense of the island of 



THE MIDDLE COLONIES 89 

Jersey during the civil war in England. There were already 
some Dutch settlers in New Jersey, and English colonists 
were soon attracted by the Uberal land policy of the pro- 
prietors and the promise of a representative government. 
The proprietors soon divided the land between them, and 
the two parts became known as East and West New Jersey. 
In 1673 a group of Quakers bought an interest in West 
Jersey and brought many Quaker colonists there. By 
1682 all of New Jersey came into the hands of twelve Quak- 
ers, among whom was William Penn, the founder of Penn- 
sylvania. In 1702 the proprietors sold their rights to the 
King and New Jersey became a royal province. 

Pennsylvania 
loi. The Founding of Pennsylvania. — William Perin, 
as one of the proprietors of New Jersey, became interested 
in colonization in America and de- 
cided to secure a grant of land for 
himself where he could build up a 
colony according to his own ideas. 
He was one of the leading Quakers 
in England and desired a place of 
refuge for his co-religionists who were 
suffering severe persecution at home. .'L 
Charles II owed the sum of £16,000 f 
to Penn's father, an English admiral. ^ 
On the death of his father, Penn 

..... , . William Fenn 

mhented this claim and at his re- 
quest the King granted Penn in 1680 a tract of land between 
Maryland and New York, west of the Delaware River. In 
honor of Penn's father the King called the land Pennsyl- 
vania, which means Penn's woods. 




90 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

This land had already been settled by Swedes, Dutch, 
and English, — and in 1681 Penn sent out a governor. At 
the same time he issued an invitation to the people of Eng- 
land to go to his colony. Settlers were promised land on 
easy terms, a liberal government, and freedom of worship 
for Christians. In 1682 Penn himself arrived in Pennsyl- 
vania with a group of colonists. 

102. Penn's Government. — Penn was not anxious to 
keep political power in his own hands. He was undertaking 
*' a holy experiment," and he believed that " the people 
must rule." He, therefore, made no objection when the 
assembly for which he arranged took much power into its 
own hands. The first meeting of the assembly was held at 
Chester a few months after Penn's arrival. It was there 
decided that all tax-payers were to be voters and that all 
Christians were to be allowed to hold office. 

In 1684 Penn returned to England, where he remained 
for some years. During his absence dissatisfaction with the 
government arose, and on his second visit to the colony a 
new constitution was adopted (1701) which remained in 
force until 1776. Under this constitution the power of 
dissolving the assembly was taken from the governor. The 
right to hold office was given to all Christians, but in 1705 
this right was taken from Catholics. The constitution pro- 
vided for its own amendment, and was the first written 
constitution in history to have such a provision. 

103. Why Pennsylvania Progressed. — The early set- 
tlers of Pennsylvania did not have to contend with famine 
and disease, as did some of the other colonies. The soil 
was very fertile, and the colonists soon had an abundance of 
food to export to the tobacco and sugar plantations of the 
West Indies, where they found a ready market. 



THE MIDDLE COLONIES 91 

Besides the thousands of EngHsh Quakers who came to 
Pennsylvania, German Mennonites, holding religious views 
similar to those of the Quakers, came in great numbers, and 
men from Wales and Ireland helped to swell the population 
in Penn's colony. Philadelphia, founded in 1683, by 1697 
had twelve thousand inhabitants and was the largest town 
in the English colonies. 

One of the reasons for this rapid growth of Pennsylvania 
was the absence of Indian troubles. Penn not only treated 
the natives with marked kindness himself but insisted on 
fair dealing with them by others. He made many treaties 
with them for the purchase of land and paid them what they 
thought good value. 

Delaware 

104. How the Southern Boundary of Pennsylvania Was 
Settled. — In 1638 men from Sweden built a fort near the 
present site of Wilmington, Delaware, and engaged in the fur 
trade. Later they made other settlements on the Delaware 
River, calling the country New Sweden. But the Dutch 
claimed this territory, and in 1655 took possession of it and 
made it a part of New Netherland. It passed into the hands 
of the Duke of York in 1664, when the Dutch possessions 
in America were captured by the English. 

William Penn and the Duke of York were close friends, 
and, when Penn received Pennsylvania from Charles II, 
the duke gave him the settlements on the Delaware. Be- 
cause of a lack of knowledge of the geography of the region, 
Penn's grant included some of the lands in Maryland already 
given to Lord Baltimore. But Penn's influence with the 
King secured for him all the land now known as Delaware. 
In 1703 the people of Delaware were allowed a separate 



92 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 



legislative assembly, but until the Revolution it had the same 
governor as Pennsylvania. 

Penn's claims interfered with those of Maryland along 
the whole boundary line as well as in Delaware. The dis- 
pute as to the boundary west of Delaware was not settled 
in Penn's Hfetime, but it continued to vex the heirs of Penn 
and Baltimore for many years. The present line between 
Maryland and Pennsylvania was finally run in 1767 by two 
English surveyors, Mason and Dixon. 

Vocabulary 
arbitrary petition traitor treason 

Map Exercises 

1. Trace the Hudson River from source to mouth. Locate Albany 

and New York. 

2. Find Manhattan Island. 

3. Locate the Delaware River. 

4. Trace the Mason and Dixon line. 

Questions 

I. Who founded the city of New York .? 2. Who were the patroons ? 
What privileges had they? 3. Have you heard of Wall Street and its 
importance in New York to-day ? How was it named ? 4. Why was it 
difficult to rule New Netherland ? 5. How did the English get control 
of New Amsterdam ? Why did they want it ? 6. In which of the other 
colonies was there a similar contest between the governor and the rep- 
resentatives of the people .'' 7. How did New York win the friendship 
of the Iroquois ? Why was this important later ? 8. Name the gover- 
nors of New York and tell how each ruled. 9. Why did William Penn 
become interested in colonization ? 10. How did he make his colony 
attractive to settlers? 11. How did Delaware become an English 
colony? 12. Why were so many mistakes of boundaries made in land 
grants? 13. What is the Mason and Dixon line? 



CHAPTER VIII 
COLONIAL LIFE 

105. The Number and Character of the Colonists. — • 

The colonies whose foundation has been considered grew 
rapidly in numbers and wealth in spite of early hardships 
and disasters. By the time that the contest for independence 
began (1760), their numbers had increased to 1,600,000. 
At the same time settlers, except in the Carolinas and 
Georgia, had occupied the lands between the Atlantic 
coast and the Appalachian Mountains, and in some cases 
were reaching out to the new lands beyond. Of the people 
then in the colonies, New England had nearly 500,000, the 
middle colonies about 400,000, and the South over 700,000. 
Virginia, with about 315,000 inhabitants, was the largest 
colony ; Georgia, with 9000, was the smallest. 

The early years of the eighteenth century saw a change 
in the character of the immigration to the American colonies. 
Conditions in England grew more favorable and Englishmen 
ceased to come in large numbers. On the other hand, war 
in Scotland and economic distress in Ireland served to send 
large numbers of Irish and Scotch to the New World. 
The Irish who came to the colonies landed chiefly at Phila- 
delphia and Charleston, and passed on to the frontier, where 
they became the principal element of the population in the 
valleys of western Virginia and the Carolinas. It is esti- 

93 



94 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

mated that in the twenty years between 1730 and 1750 
two hundred forty thousand people came from Ireland 
to the colonies. Some Germans came to Pennsylvania in 
Penn's time, and there is recorded the arrival of three thou- 
sand Germans in New York in 1710. But the great German 
immigration began in 1717, principally to Pennsylvania, 
and continued, with little falling oflp, until the Revolution. 
They arrived in such numbers that large sections of 
Pennsylvania were given over to German customs and the 
German language. Many Welsh, Dutch, Swedes, and French 
came also. 

An important element in the population was the negro. 
Negro slaves were to be found in the New England colonies, 
but except in Rhode Island not in great numbers. In New 
York about one sixth of the population was made up of ne- 
groes, but the proportion was not so large in the other middle 
colonies. In Maryland the slaves were about one fourth of 
the total population, in Virginia nearly one half, and in South 
Carolina they greatly outnumbered the whites. 

106. Colonial Industries. — Most of the colonists were 
farmers. Fishing was important, especially in New England, 
where cod and mackerel were plentiful. Lumbering was 
carried on in all the colonies and some little manufacturing 
was done. 

In the South large plantations worked by slave labor 
were common. The tobacco plantations of Virginia often 
were of enormous size. The famous estate of William Byrd 
just fell short of one hundred eighty thousand acres, though 
not many were so large. Tobacco and rice were the 
chief crops in the South in the eighteenth century, and 
indigo became important about 1750. Of other products 
the South had great wealth in lumber and pitch and tar. 



COLONIAL LIFE Q5 

In the western settlements of the southern colonies the land 
was suitable for wheat-raising, and here small farms were 
common and slaves were not much used. 

In the middle and New England colonies small farms 
were the rule, except among the patroons of the Hudson 



A Typical Southern Home 

River. The farmers of the middle colonies produced large 
quantities of wheat, flour, beef, and pork for export. They 
found a good market in the West Indies, French and Spanish, 
as well as English, where the raising of sugar proved so 
profitable that the planters neglected the cultivation of 
other crops. 

The long winters in the northern colonies gave plenty 
of opportunity for the farmer and his family to engage in 
other pursuits besides tilling the soil. As a result spinning 
and weaving, at least of the coarser grades of woolens, were 
widely practiced. The farmer made shingles and staves 



96 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 



and hammered out nails at his own forge. Ship-building 
became a leading industry of Massachusetts, where, on 
account of the cheapness of lumber, vessels were built for 
the English as well as the American market. Rum, manu- 
factured from West Indian molasses, was an important article 
of export from New England, particularly for the purchase 
of slaves on the African coast. A million and a quarter 
gallons were made in Boston each year. Hat-making was 




A Typical New England Home 



so profitable an industry in the colonies that Parliament 
in 1732 put severe restrictions on the industry. The pro- 
duction of iron in the colonies also aroused the jealousy of 
manufacturers at home, and in 1750 an act of Parliament 
sought to limit iron manufacture in the colonies to the pro- 
duction of pig iron and bar iron. 

107. Colonial Trade. — Though the sea-going commerce 
of the colonies grew rapidly in the eighteenth century, it did 
not result in the development of large cities. For the small 



COLONIAL LIFE 97 

ships of the time fair harbors could be found at many points 
in the North ; and in the South the wide, slow-moving 
streams permitted each large plantation to have its own 
wharves where ocean-going vessels came with European 
merchandise and were loaded with tobacco for the European 
markets. In 1760 Boston and Philadelphia, the largest 
towns, had only 20,000 people each, while New York, the 
third city in size, had 10,000. Next came Charleston, 
South Carolina, with about 9000. 

Besides their trade with England, the colonies did a brisk 
business with the West India Islands and the neighboring 
Spanish mainland. The colonies sent lumber, fish, beef, 
pork, and flour to the West Indies, and their ships brought 
back molasses and sugar. The planters of the British sugar 
islands in the West Indies did not like to see the colonists 
buying sugar and molasses from the French, Dutch, and 
Spanish sugar-growers, and in 1733 induced Parliament to 
pass the " Molasses Act " to prevent the colonies in North 
America from buying any but British-grown sugar and 
molasses. This law might have worked extreme hardship 
on the colonists, for the British West Indies did not produce 
enough molasses for the New England rum-makers, but 
means were found to evade the law. Bribery of officials 
was common, and there were so many good harbors along 
the northern coast that an enormous amount of smuggling 
was done in spite of the customs officers. 

Many tricks were resorted to in evading the act. A com- 
mon one was for a ship-captain to sail from Jamaica, a British 
sugar island, with a cargo of empty barrels, which were 
entered on the ship's papers as filled with molasses. He 
would then go to a French island to fill his barrels, and 
when he reached Boston his clearance from Jamaica pro- 

H 



98 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

tected his cargo. Had the law been enforced, it would have 
ruined a large part of the trade of the northern colonies ; 
and thirty years later, when the British minister, Pitt, tried 
to enforce it, he aroused a spirit of resentment in New Eng- 
land that did much to bring on the Revolutionary War. 

The slave trade was closely related to the molasses trade 
and the manufacture of rum. Ships laden with rum would 
sail to the African coast and trade their cargo for negro 
slaves ; then cross the Atlantic to the West Indies or the 
southern colonies, discharge their human freight, and return 
to a northern port with a cargo of molasses. A slave in 
1760 was frequently worth a hundred dollars more in 
America than in Africa. If a ship captain carried with him 
a hundred or more slaves, his voyage was highly profitable. 

108. Education in Colonial Times. — By a law of 1647 
Massachusetts required each town^ according to its size, 
to maintain a primary school or a grammar school. The 
hard conditions of life in the seventeenth century prevented 
this wise law from being widely observed, but its adoption 
showed the interest of the colonists in education. When 
prosperous times came in the eighteenth century, greater 
attention was paid to the establishment of schools. Parents 
in Pennsylvania were admonished under penalty of a heavy 
fine to see that their children were taught to read. A Mary- 
land law provided that each county should maintain a school, 
but as the teacher was required to be an Episcopalian, only 
a small part of the community could take advantage of 
the arrangement. In the first quarter of the eighteenth 
century Virginia had twelve free schools endowed by 
well-to-do planters and about twenty good private schools. 
The plantations of the South did not readily permit the 
building up of a school system. The children of the rich 



COLONIAL LIFE 



99 



depended on private tutors and usually the children of the 
poor were taught at home or not at all, though a number of 
free scholarships were established for the poor, especially in 
South Carolina. The Dutch in New York made an effort 
to have schools in connection with their churches. During 
Governor Dongan's administration, his chaplain, Father 
Harvey, and two other Jesuits opened in New York a Latin 
school which flourished for a few years. 

109. Books and Newspapers. — The earliest printing 
press in the English colonies was set up in Massachusetts in 
1638 under the direction of Harvard College; a private 
printing office was opened in the colony a few years later. 
The books printed in the early days of Massachusetts were 
chiefly of a religious nature. A censorship of printing was 
maintained and we read that in 1669 the General Court 
stopped the printing of " a booke, that Imitations of Christ, 
or to that purpose, written by Thomas a Kempis, a Popish 
minister." 

Among the well-to-do and the clergy there were many 
libraries of books from England and the Continent. The 
first public library in the colonies is believed to have been 
that of Charleston, South Carolina, which was opened before 
1698. Benjamin Franklin was the prime mover in securing 
a public library for Philadelphia in 173 1. The first news- 
paper in the colonies was the Boston News Letter, established 
in 1704. In the next thirty years numerous weekly journals 
were founded, and by the Revolutionary era the press had 
immense influence on colonial public opinion. 

no. How Wrongdoers Were Punished. — The colonists 
brought with them from England and other countries of 
Europe harsh methods of dealing with wrongdoers. The 
prisons were foul, and terrible bodily punishment was 



lOO 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 



frequently inflicted. Whipping was common, and branding 
on cheek or forehead and boring the tongue with a red-hot 
iron were often resorted to. The ofi^ender might have his 
hands and head confined in a pillory and his ears nailed to 

aboard. In 1722, a thief 
who stole to the value of 
about a dollar in North 
Carolina was sentenced "to 
be whipped at the cart's tail 
thirty-nine stripes on the 
bare back through Edenton 
and the same through Bath." 
III. Local Government. 
" — In the New England 
colonies the people were 
grouped in agricultural vil- 
LiL- lages, and the unit of local 
- government was the town 
meeting. This assembly, 
which was similar to the 
parish meetings that the earlier colonists had known in 
England, levied taxes, chose local officers, and supervised 
roads, bridges, and other local public improvements. The 
town clerk kept the records and the " select-men," usually 
seven or nine, managed the aff"airs of the village between 
town meetings. 

In the South the soil and climate and the many navigable 
rivers developed the plantation system. The village com- 
munity was not common and the town meeting could not 
serve the purpose of local government. There the unit of 
local government was the county, patterned after the English 
county. Its aff'airs were administered in the county court, 




A Pillory 



COLONIAL LIFE lOi 

held four times a year and presided over by justices of the 
peace, usually men of social prominence, appointed by the 
governor. The county court looked after the roads and other 
local improvements. It also tried small law cases. In the 
county court were elected the county's representatives in the 
colonial assembly. The voting was by word of mouth, a 
method that often prevented a real expression of opinion 
and permitted the wealthier citizens to control public affairs. 
The sheriff and clerk of the court were usually appointed 
by the governor. The county system as it grew up in the 
South tended to put political power in the hands of the 
landed aristocracy. 

In the middle colonies both the town and the county 
were made use of, and from them the system of counties 
divided into towns or townships spread in the nineteenth 
century to many of the newer states of the Union. 

Vocabulary 
biography emigrant local government 

compulsory immigrant primary 

Questions 
I. In 1760 what was the total population of the united colonies? 
Where was this population densest ? Why ? What per cent were slaves ? 
2. What nations later sent many immigrants? 3. What was the chief 
occupation in the northern, southern, and middle colonies ? 4. Name 
the chief manufactures of the New England colonies. 5. Why does com- 
merce to-day mean development of large cities although in the eighteenth 
century it did not ? 6. What were England's restrictions on colonial 
trade? What were the reasons for such restrictions? 7. What was 
the interest of New England in the slave trade ? 8. Why was compulsory 
education impossible ? Where was education most difficult ? Why ? 
9. How do you explain the cruel colonial punishments ? 10. Describe the 
township government of the northern colonies. Describe the county gov- 
ernment of the southern colonies. Point out differences between them. 



CHAPTER IX 

THE RISE AND FALL OF NEW FRANCE 

112. The French in the West. — The Appalachian Moun- 
tains and the hostile Indian tribes prevented the English 
colonies from expanding rapidly to the interior of the coun- 
try. It was only when the lands between the mountains 
and the sea had been occupied and there was pressing need 
of more land that the barriers to westward expansion were 
overcome. But the French, who began the permanent 
settlement of the North American continent about the same 
time as the English, found a natural highway to the interior 
by way of the St. Lawrence River and the Great Lakes. Nor 
did the Indians offer the same resistance to the French as to 
the English. The French did not come in sufficient numbers 
to threaten the hunting grounds of the natives ; and as they 
were engaged chiefly in the fur trade and brought firearms 
and other things which the Indians wanted, they were wel- 
comed. 

As a result, French traders and missionaries were able to 
penetrate into the interior with little hindrance. Cham- 
plain, who founded Quebec in 1608, had an agent in Wiscon- 
sin making trading agreements with the Indians as early as 
1634. As we have already seen, the Jesuit missionaries were 
soon in this territory bringing a knowledge of the Christian 
faith to the savage natives. The Jesuit, Father Claude Allouez, 



THE RISE AND FALL OF NEW FRANCE 



103 



who spent over thirty years in the middle of the continent, 
has well been called *' the founder of Catholicity in the 
West." He preached to twenty different tribes and bap- 
tized ten thousand of the natives. Associated with him for 
a number of years was his brother 
Jesuit, Father James Marquette, 
whom the state of Wisconsin has 
honored with a statue in the Capitol 
at Washington. 

113. The French Reach the Mis- 
sissippi. — While at the La Pointe 
Mission, near the modern town of 
Ashland, Wisconsin, Father Mar- 
quette became interested in the 
stories which he heard from his 
Indian converts of the " great river " 
to the west. In 1673 he and Louis 
Joliet, an explorer sent out by Fron- 
tenac, the governor of New France, 
set out from the St. Ignace Mission 
at the Straits of Mackinac to find 
the "great river," which they hoped 
flowed into the Pacific Ocean ; for 
the French were still desirous of finding a convenient westerly 
route to the East Indies. Marquette and Joliet ascended 
the Fox River and by an easy portage reached the Wis- 
consin, down which, on June 17, they drifted to the Missis- 
sippi. They journeyed down this great river to the mouth 
of the Arkansas and by that time learned from the natives 
that the Mississippi emptied into the Gulf of Mexico. 
Fearing capture by the Spaniards if they kept on, the 
travelers turned their faces to the north. 




Father Marquette 



I04 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 



Joliet returned to Quebec, where his story of the discovery 
filled Governor Frontenac and others with dreams of a great 
French empire in the West. Marquette remained to preach 
the Gospel among the savages. He labored among the 
Kaskaskias and other Illinois tribes, but in 1675 he was 
taken ill and died on the shores of Lake Michigan. His 
remains were afterwards removed to the St. Ignace Mission 
which he had founded. His death, at the early age of thirty- 
nine, brought to a close the labors of one of the most remark- 
able of American missionaries and explorers. 

114. The Work of La Salle. — Among those at Quebec 
who heard the story of Joliet's travels on the Mississippi 
was Robert Cavalier, better known as the Sieur de la 
Salle, already a great traveler and the 
trusted agent of Governor Frontenac. 
La Salle formed a plan to take pos- 
session of the Mississippi region in the 
name of France and to secure the 
mouth of the great river as a warm- 
water port from which ships could 
sail all the year round. Starting for 
the West in the fall of 1679, he reached 
Peoria Lake on the Illinois River, 
New Year's Day, 1680, where he built 
Fort Crevecceur. 
Finding it necessary to return to Fort Frontenac on Lake 
Ontario for provisions, La Salle directed some of his party 
to explore the upper waters of the Mississippi. This party 
was headed by Michel Accau and Father Louis Hennepin, 
a Franciscan, who has left us an account of the expedition. 
In their travels they reached the present site of Minneapolis, 
where the Falls of St. Anthony were named by Father Hen- 




SiEUR DE LA Salle 



THE RISE AND FALL OF NEW FRANCE 105 

nepin in honor of the great Franciscan, St. Anthony of Padua. 
Taken prisoners by the Sioux, Father Hennepin and his com- 
panions, after many wanderings, were liberated by Duluth, 
a French fur trader. 

After La Salle had returned to Canada he equipped a new 
expedition and set out once more for the Mississippi, which 
he reached by way of the Illinois River in February, 1682. 
Following the stream to its mouth, he took formal possession, 
in the name of the French king, of the whole Mississippi 
basin. Two years later, in 1684, he undertook to lead a 
colony from France to the lower Mississippi region, but mis- 
fortunes followed his new venture. The Spaniards cap- 
tured one of his four ships, and the others failed to find the 
river. A landing was made on the Texas coast, and Fort 
St. Louis was established on Matagorda Bay. After two 
years of extreme hardship, La Salle started overland for 
Canada to secure relief for his colony. Before many weeks, 
he was killed by two of his own men (March, 1687). His 
companions reached Canada in safety, but the colony he left 
at Fort St. Louis was destroyed by the Indians. 

115. The Territory of Louisiana. — King Louis XIV was 
greatly interested in La Salle's plan for taking possession 
of the Mississippi basin, but his attention was diverted from 
the work of settlement by a war with England, which broke 
out in 1689 and lasted till 1697. The French and English 
colonists became involved in the conflict, which is sometimes 
known as King William's War. Both sides made use of 
savages, and the war was fought with much barbarism. 
Neither side won any territory in America. 

At the end of the war Louis sent out an expedition to the 
Mississippi under the command of Peter Le Moyne, better 
known as Iberville. A post was established at Biloxi, near 



io6 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 



the mouth of the river. Later the colony was removed to 
the Mobile River, and in 1710 a second removal was made 
to the present site of Mobile. Iberville left the colony in 
its early days, and his brother, Jean Le Moyne, known as 
Bienville, became for the next forty years the leading figure 
in Louisiana, as the region came to be called in honor of King 
Louis. Bienville founded New Orleans in 171 8, and this 
place soon became the chief city of the 
provmce. In the furtherance of their 
trade with the Indians the French 
voyaged up the Red, the Arkansas, 
and the Missouri rivers and traveled 
overland until they came in contact 
with the Spanish traders from the 
Southwest. In the North the French 
were no less active. A fort was estab- 
lished by Cadillac at Detroit in 1701. 
About the same time the Sulpicians 
arrived at Cahokia, and the Jesuits at 
Kaskaskia in the present state of Illinois. In the next few 
years these missions became prosperous agricultural com- 
munities, where hundreds of settlers found profit in raising 
wheat for the French towns on the lower Mississippi. 

116. The Importance of Sea Power. — The successors 
of La Salle might well think that the great explorer's dream 
of a French empire in the West was coming true, but in the 
rapid growth of the English colonies a force was at work 
which prevented the reahzation of this dream. By the 
middle of the eighteenth century a million and a half persons 
were occupying the narrow coast east of the Appalachians 
and soon were demanding new lands to feed their growing 
numbers. To oppose their progress into the Mississippi 




Peter Le Moyne 



THE RISE AND FALL OF NEW FRANCE 



107 



basin, there were only eighty thousand French in all Canada 
and Louisiana. If the land of New France was to be pro- 
tected from the English, it would have to be by soldiers 
sent from France. But in the eighteenth century England 




New Orleans in the Early Days 

gained control of the sea, and the French at home became 
unable to render efficient aid to their kinsmen across the 
Atlantic. 

117. Queen Anne's War (1702-1713). — The final con- 
flict which led to the downfall of New France was preceded 
by several lesser wars in which the English and French colo- 
nies took part. The first of these. King William's War, 
which has already been noted (Sec. 115), left the American 
territories of the two powers unchanged. In 1702, after 
only five years of peace, there began in Europe the War of 
the Spanish Succession, fought by England and other pow- 
ers to prevent a French prince from becoming ruler of Spain 



io8 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

and its vast possessions in Europe and America. The war 
spread to America, where it was known as Queen Anne's 
War. The Enghsh captured Acadia with its chief town, 
Port Royal, but an attempt which was made to take 
Quebec failed. At the treaty of Utrecht (171 3), which 
closed the war, several matters of interest in America were 
settled : 

1. England was to keep Acadia, or Nova Scotia as it is 
now called, but the boundaries were not clearly defined. 

2. The Iroquois Indians were to be regarded as British 
subjects. 

3. England's claim to Newfoundland was recognized, 
though French fishermen retained their right to dry fish on 
the coast. 

4. The Hudson Bay country was recognized as British 
territory. 

118. King George's War (1745-1748). — When the 
French lost Nova Scotia, they lost the town of Port Royal, 
which was not only their first permanent settlement in 
America but their chief military position on the coast. 
Within a few years they began the erection of a powerful 
fortress on Cape Breton Island, which is separated from 
Nova Scotia by a narrow channel. The fortifications of 
the new post, which was called Louisburg, are estimated to 
have cost ^10,000,000 in present values. When war broke 
out again, the French aimed to have an excellent base from 
which to attack English trade in America and particularly 
the fishing industry of Newfoundland. 

In 1745 England and France took opposite sides in the 
War of the Austrian Succession in Europe, and in a very 
short time the conflict reached America. Under the direc- 
tion of Governor Shirley of Massachusetts, New England 



130° 120° 110° 100° 90° 80 




Wun. Eot. Co.. N.Y 



English, French, .\nd Spanish Possessions in America, 1750 



THE RISE AND FALL OF NEW FRANCE 109 

raised an army of 4000 men for the siege of Louisburg. An 
English fleet cooperated with the colonial troops, and the 
great fortress, which was poorly equipped with men and 
munitions, fell June 16, 1745, after a siege of over forty days. 
The French attempted to regain the post by an expedition 
from France, but the control of the sea remained in English 
hands and Louisburg was retained until the close of the war 
in Europe in 1748. It was then returned to France by the 
treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle in exchange for Madras in far- 
away India, which had been taken by the French. The 
New England people were greatly disappointed at seeing 
the hard-won stronghold handed over to France. 

119. The French and English in the Ohio Valley. — 
Peace between the English and French in America could 
not long endure. Along the frontier, from Nova Scotia to 
the Gulf of Mexico, the two nations were coming into 
closer contact each year, and a final struggle for supremacy 
was inevitable. 

Backwoodsmen of Virginia were already acquainted with 
the hunting grounds of Kentucky and some of them had 
land claims there. In 1748 a farming settlement was es- 
tablished by Virginians on the upper waters of the Kanawha 
River, which flows into the Ohio. Farther to the south, 
traders from the Carolinas and Georgia were competing 
with the French for the fur trade of the interior. 

This English invasion of the region west of the Appalach- 
ians roused the governor of Canada to action, and in 1749 
he sent an expedition to take possession of the Ohio Valley 
and drive out the English traders. As a sign of their owner- 
ship of the land, the French planted at the mouth of the 
principal streams lead plates bearing a statement of their 
claims. 



no 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED- STATES 



120. The Ohio Company Begins the Conflict. — In 1749, 
the same year that the French expedition visited the Ohio 
Valley, the Ohio Company, among whose members were 
Lawrence and Augustine Washington, brothers of our first 
president, was given two hundred thousand acres along the 
Ohio River. The company prepared for the settlement of 
its lands by blazing a trail from the present site of Cumber- 
land, Maryland, on the Potomac, sixty miles over the hills 



(^ 




B 








■•^••v--^^^B 


=**^ 


m 












m 


•^■^'' 


.,:-.. 




.,-->;,• .^.■^gf^agaiq&fe 


.\ -^ 






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■0: 



Washington Starts for the French Fort 

to the Monongahela where Brownsville, Pennsylvania, 
now stands. But before the company was able to occupy 
its lands, the French were again in the Ohio Valley, beginning 
the construction of a line of forts from the present site of 
Erie, Pennsylvania, to the mouth of the Ohio. In the 
winter of 1753-1754 Governor Dinwiddie of Virginia sent 
George Washington, a capable young Virginian of twenty- 
one years, to protest to the French against their occupation 
of territory which he said was " so notoriously known to be 



THE RISE AND FALL OF NEW FRANCE ill 

the property of the crown of Great Britain." Though Wash- 
ington was poHtely received, it was plain that the French 
intended to remain in the country. 

Both sides were anxious to occupy the strategic point 
where the Allegheny and the Monongahela unite to form 
the Ohio, and an attempt was made by the Virginia governor 
to fortify the place the same winter that Washington visited 
the French in the west. But in the following April the fort 
builders were surprised by a superior force of French and 
Indians and compelled to surrender. They were sent back 
to Virginia, while the French greatly strengthened the forti- 
fications, calling them Fort Duquesne in honor of the gov- 
ernor of Canada. 

Washington was once more sent to the west, this time at 
the head of three hundred armed men. Late in May he 
arrived at Great Meadows, within a few days' march of Fort 
Duquesne. In a skirmish with a detachment of French and 
Indians, the French leader and ten of his men were killed 
and the remainder taken prisoners or driven off. Thus was 
shed the first blood in a conflict that was to involve the de- 
struction of the French power in America. Washington 
now set up a stockade, which he called Fort Necessity, and 
awaited the attack of the main French force. After a gal- 
lant defense he surrendered, but was permitted to march out 
with the honors of war (July 4, 1754). 

121. The Albany Congress (1754). — The British gov- 
ernment had already begun to fear the outbreak of war in 
America. In 1753 it had urged the colonial governors to 
provide for the defense of the English colonies and, if pos- 
sible, to secure an alliance with the powerful Iroquois In- 
dians. In accordance with these recommendations, dele- 
gates from Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Hampshire, 



112 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, and Maryland 
assembled at Albany in June, 1754, while Washington was 
facing the French at Fort Necessity. The Iroquois could 
not be induced to form an alhance at the time, but the con- 
gress was able to formulate a plan of union proposed by 
Benjamin Franklin, who ably represented Pennsylvania at 
the conference. The plan provided for the appointment 
by the king of a president-general and for a council chosen 
by the colonial assemblies. The council was to meet once 
a year and to have power to make laws, levy taxes, control 
public lands, make treaties with the Indians, and equip and 
pay an army. Though unanimously recommended by the 
Albany Congress, the plan was rejected by the colonies, who 
were not yet prepared to give up such large powers to a 
central government. 

122. The Campaign of 1755. — Two British regiments 
were sent to Virginia in 1755 under command of General 
Edward Braddock, and an ambitious campaign against 
New France was planned. 

1. Braddock's force, aided by Virginia troops, was to 
capture Fort Duquesne. 

2. The Massachusetts forces under Governor Shirley 
were to attack the French fort at Niagara. 

3. William Johnson, an Irishman who had acquired great 
influence over the Iroquois, was to lead the militia of New 
York against Crown Point on Lake Champlain and so open 
the way for an invasion of Canada. 

4. The French were to be driven from their remaining 
posts in Acadia. 

Braddock set out over the route Washington had followed, 
and on July 8, 1755, arrived within eight miles of Fort Du- 
quesne, where he was offered battle by a force composed 



THE RISE AND FALL OF NEW FRANCE 



113 



largely of Indians, but containing also Frenchmen and Cana- 
dians. Sheltered behind trees and fallen trunks, the attack- 
ing party poured a murderous fire into the ranks of the 
British soldiery. Braddock, who had no knowledge of 
Indian warfare, refused to let his men seek shelter. Their 
scarlet coats made ex- 
cellent targets for the 
hidden foe, and the Brit- 
ish force was soon de- 
moralized. Braddock 
himself was mortally 
wounded and it fell to 
Washington to conduct 
the retreat of the panic- 
stricken army. For 
three years more the 
French held their ground 
at Fort Duquesne. 

From papers found 
on the scene of Brad- 
dock's defeat, the French 
learned the plan of the 
British campaign and 
were so well prepared for 
the expeditions against ^^'''''^" ^"^"^^ ^^ '^"^ West 

Niagara and Crown Point that neither was successful. 

123. The Expulsion of the Acadians. — The only British 
success of the year was the expedition against Acadia. The 
British claim to Acadia, or Nova Scotia, had been recog- 
nized by the treaty of Utrecht in 1713 (Sec. 117). The 
French inhabitants of the peninsula, ill-used under British 
rule, never became loyal to Great Britain, and in the 




Wma. Bug. Co.. N.lft ~ 



114 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 



summer of 1755 troops were sent to carry out the cruel 
work of removing the Acadian population from the land. 
Their lands were confiscated and seven thousand persons 
were driven from their homes and scattered among the 




Acadia, a Part of New France 

colonial settlements from Massachusetts to Georgia. The 
story of their great suffering is told in Longfellow's 
Eva7igeline. 

124. Two Years of French Success. — In spite of the 
fighting in America, it was not until 1756 that England and 
France formally declared war on each other. In that year 
a great conflict, known as the Seven Years' War, broke out 
in Europe, and France and England were again on opposite 
sides. Their struggle in America came to be called the 
French and Indian War. The English showed little energy 
in the conduct of the war for the next two years, and Mont- 



THE RISE AND FALL OF NEW FRANCE 115 

calm, the new governor of Canada, was able to wni several 
successes. In 1756 he took the English post at Oswego 
on Lake Ontario and burned it. The next year he captured 
Fort William Henry on Lake George, and an English at- 
tempt to take Louisburg failed. 

125. Pitt Comes into Power. — There now came into a 
position of power in England William Pitt, one of the most 
far-seeing statesmen of modern times. He realized the enor- 
mous value to his country of the control of the sea and de- 
voted his powerful energies to the upbuildmg of the British 
navy. At the same time France was spending her resources 
in an attempt to defeat the armies of Frederick the Great, 
King of Prussia, the most capable military leader of his time. 
By lending money to Frederick and by strengthening the 
British navy, Pitt overcame the power of France. 

In 1758 Louisburg was taken, as was also Fort Frontenac 
on the northern shore of Lake Ontario. The same year a new 
advance on Fort Duquesne was undertaken by a combined 
force of British regulars and colonial militia led by General 
Forbes, with Colonel Washington in command of the Vir- 
ginia troops. Feeling themselves unable to hold Fort Du- 
quesne, the French blew up its defenses before Forbes ar- 
rived in November, 1758. The English occupied the place 
abandoned by the French and renamed it Fort Pitt in honor 
of the English minister. It is now called Pittsburgh. 

The only French success of the year was the defeat of an 
English army of 15,000 near Ticonderoga by Montcalm 
with only 3100 men. 

126. The Fall of Quebec (1759). — In 1759 Pitt deter- 
mined upon the conquest of Quebec, and early in the year 
sent to the St. Lawrence a great fleet carrying an army 
under the command of General Wolfe. Quebec occupied a 



ii6 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 



strong natural position ; and from June to September the 
best efforts of Wolfe made no impression on the defenses 
of the city, though many houses were destroyed by the 
cannonading. The English commander now determined to 
take his troops up the river past the city and attack Quebec 
from above. The banks of the St. Lawrence above Quebec 
were high and steep, but an occasional ravine offered a means 
of reaching the plains on which the city stood. In the morn- 
ing of September 13, 1759, four thousand English troops 

made their way up one 
of these ravines about a 
mile and a half from the 
city and gained the heights 
before effective resistance 
could be made to their 
advance. Montcalm, mis- 
taking the numbers of 
the English, attacked at 
once in the open field, 
instead of waiting within 
his defenses, where he 
might have protected him- 
self until the approach of winter would drive the English 
from the river. The discipline of the English regulars soon 
told and the French line broke and fled. Both Montcalm 
and Wolfe fell, mortally wounded, at the decisive moment 
of the battle. Wolfe died on the field and Montcalm 
passed away the next morning within the city. 

A monument to the two great soldiers has been erected 
in Quebec bearing this inscription : " Valor gave a united 
death. History a united fame. Posterity a united monu- 
ment." 




^^^^MS ^a. HQ.j U.I 

Quebec and Vicinity 



THE RISE AND FALL OF NEW FRANCE 



117 




General Montcalm 



The city surrendered four days after the battle. News 
of the fall of Quebec, the center of French power in America, 
was greeted with joy throughout the English colonies. A 
year later Montreal surrendered, 
and French resistance in America 
came to an end. 

127. England's Success Due to 
Her Control of the Sea. — Spain 
had entered the war as an ally 
of France and, owing to the supe- 
riority of the English fleet over 
those of both France and Spain, 
had lost Cuba and the Philippine 
Islands. In fact, the navy of 
France had been utterly ruined 
by the war. Admiral Mahan, the distinguished historian 
of naval warfare, has pointed out that England's success 
was due to " the tremendous weapon of her sea power." 

128. The Treaty of Paris (1763). — The war in Europe 
against Frederick the Great had also resulted in the defeat 
of the French, and, with their resources exhausted, they made 
peace at Paris in February, 1763. By the terms of the 
treaty the following agreements were reached : 

1. All the French possessions in North America east of 
the Mississippi River went to England, except that the 
island on which New Orleans stands, lying east of the river, 
was left to the French. 

2. France retained the right of fish-drying on the north 
and west shores of Newfoundland, and two small neighbor- 
ing islands as a shelter for her fishermen. 

3. France lost her islands in the West Indies, except two, 
Guadeloupe and Martinique. 



Il8 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

4. England received Florida from Spain, to whom she 
restored Cuba and the Philippines. 

By a secret arrangement France ceded to Spain New Or- 
leans and all the French possessions west of the Mississippi. 
This territory was later returned to France. (Sec. 223.) 

129. How the French and Indian War Prepared the Way 
for the Revolution. — Besides giving to England possession 
of vast territories in North America, the French and Indian 
War in a number of ways prepared the ground for the sepa- 
ration of the English colonies from the mother country. 

1. It relieved the colonies from the fear of attack on the 
part of the French, and so removed the need of English 
protection. 

2. The war promoted a spirit of unity among the colonies. 
The Albany Congress and other intercolonial gatherings 
helped to a better understanding. Soldiers from different 
sections had marched and fought together ; mutual acquaint- 
ance was fostered, so that it was easier to unite when danger 
came. 

3. The mihtary experience gained in the war by thousands 
of men and their officers gave confidence to them and aided 
them in organizing their defenses when the question of war 
with England arose. 

4. Finally, the war produced the tax controversy, which 
snapped the threads of loyalty that till then had bound the 
colonies to the British Empire. To guard against attempts 
on the part of France to regain her lands in America and 
against Indian outbreaks, it was decided to maintain a 
standing army in the colonies and tax the colonists for 
part of the army's support. 

An Indian war, the most terrible in colonial history, broke 
out in the West the very year that peace was signed (1763). 



THE RISE AND FALL OF NEW FRANCE 119 

Pontiac, a capable chief of the Ottawas, roused the Indians 
from the Alleghenies to the Mississippi in defense of their 
hunting grounds. " The English shall never come here as 
long as a red man lives," they declared. Several western 
forts were taken and a reign of terror was begun along the 
entire frontier. Sharp fighting was needed before the In- 
dians were brought to terms. The uprising was put down 
chiefly by British regulars who were still in the country. 

It was decided that ten thousand British troops were not 
too many for the protection of the colonies against the 
French and Indians. Since the army was to be maintained 
largely for the defense of Americans, the English govern- 
ment, whose own debt had been doubled by the war, thought 
the Americans ought to contribute to the army's support. 
That was, perhaps, a reasonable view to take ; but the colo- 
nists had grown accustomed to taxing themselves, and they 
resented the attempt which England now made to tax them. 

Vocabulary 
blazed trail ravine strategic supreme 

Map Exercises 

I. Locate: Ashland, Wis., Arkansas River, Matagorda Bay, Mobile, 
New Orleans, Detroit, Cape Breton Island, Louisburg, Cumber- 
land. 

Questions 

I. Give two reasons why the French penetrated inland while the 
English remained on the seacoast. 2. Describe the route of Marquette 
and Joliet. 3. How did La Salle become interested in exploring .'' 
4. Describe his first expedition. 5. Where have the early explorers been 
immortalized by names ? 6. Who first claimed the Mississippi River 
basin for the French ? How ? 7. How did Louisiana get its name ? 
Who settled it ? 8. Whom did the French fear on the north ? On the 



I20 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

south ? On the east ? On the west ? 9. What great factor made 
England a most dangerous enemy to the French in America ? 10. What 
war was closed by the treaty of Utrecht ? Give the date of the signing 
of the treaty. State its important provisions relating to America. 
II. Locate Louisburg. What was its importance in war.? 12. Give 
as complete a synopsis as you can of the threefold character of the strug- 
gle between France and England in Europe, in India, in America. 
13. What was the great strategic point in the Ohio River Valley? 
Who finally secured it? 14. Describe the expulsion of the Acadians. 
15. Give the date and the importance of the Albany Congress and 
Franklin's position in it. 16. Explain England's fourfold plan against 
the French in America in 1755. 17. What was -the explanation of 
Braddock's defeat? 18. How did William Pitt show his ability as a 
statesman ? 19. How is his genius felt in the struggle in America ? 

20. Describe the fall of Quebec ; name the two heroes of the event. 

21. Explain Spain's position in the war. 22. Give accurately the terms 
of the peace of Paris. 23. Did England make a mistake in driving the 
French out of America ? 24. In how many ways did the expulsion of the 
French prepare for the separation of the colonies from England ? 



CHAPTER X 
THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION 

I 

The Period of Debate 

130. The Spirit of Independence. — - Even before the 
French and Indian War the colonists were developing a 
spirit of independence. They were a long way from Eng- 
land ; they were growing prosperous and enjoyed a large 
measure of self-government ; America was their permanent 
home ; and they had begun to look upon themselves as 
Americans rather than as Englishmen. Moreover, outside 
of New England the greater number of colonists were of 
non-English origin and could readily be induced to break 
the ties that bound them to England. A new nation had 
grown up in America, able and willing to take care of its 
own affairs, but the English government did not recognize 
that fact. 

131. The Colonists Resent the Veto Power. — As the 
colonial assembly paid the governor's salary, it could gen- 
erally influence his action by threatening to cut off his pay. 
The king, however, still exercised control over the colonial 
assemblies by his power of vetoing colonial laws, but there 
was a growing resentment over the use of this power. The 
king was far away and the assembly had to wait months for 



122 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 



his decision ; in fact, laws were sometimes vetoed by the 
king years after they had been passed. It was felt, too, 
that the king's veto power was often exercised for the ben- 
efit of the English commercial classes and against the in- 
terest of the colonists. 

132. The Enforcement of the Molasses Act. — The 
colonies imported a great deal of sugar and molasses from 
the French and Spanish islands in the West Indies and in 
return sent those islands great quantities of food. The 
Molasses Act of 1733 was intended to stop the trade, but it 
was evaded by smuggling and other means (Sec. 107). The 
trade continued even during the French and Indian War, 
and Pitt, who then controlled the British government, 
thought he would deal a blow at the enemies of England by 
enforcing the act of 1733. But the 
trade was just as valuable to the north- 
ern colonies and especially to Massa- 
chusetts as to the French and Spanish ; 
and, though they were furnishing the 
enemy with food in war time, the 
colonists refused to give up this profit- 
able but treasonable business. 

To enforce the Molasses Act the 
customs officers asked for general search 
warrants, or " writs of assistance " as 
they were called. Armed with these, 
they could go into any house or ship, break down doors and 
open boxes as they wished in their search for smuggled goods. 
These writs had been issued in England and even in the 
colonies, but they were now to be used in an attempt to ruin 
the chief business of Massachusetts. The merchants of that 
colony raised a protest against their legality, which brought 




James Otis 



THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION 



123 



the matter before a Massachusetts court in 1761. They lost 
their case, but James Otis, a young Massachusetts lawyer 
who represented them at the trial, showed that writs of 
assistance could easily be made instruments of tyranny. He 
declared that Parliament had committed a great injustice 
when it authorized their use ; acts of that kind, he said, 
" had cost one king of England his head and another his 
throne." The eloquence of Otis made a powerful impression 
on Massachusetts public opinion. John Adams, who heard 
the speech, afterwards declared : " Then and there was 
the first scene of the first act of opposition to the arbitrary 
claims of Great Britain. Then and there the child Inde- 
pendence was born." 

133. The Stamp Act (1765). — One of the results of the 
French War was the decision on the part of the British 



MW 









Stamp Act Stamps 



government to maintain a standing army in America and 
to tax the colonies to pay a part of its costs (Sec. 129). 
The size of the army was fixed at ten thousand men, and 
money was to be raised by new taxation and a strict enforce- 
ment of the old trade regulations, including the Molasses 
Act of 17335 which was reenacted in 1764 with a few changes. 
The new taxation was to take the form of a Stamp Act 
which was passed in March, 1765. It required stamps, 
ranging in price from three pence to ten pounds, on legal 



124 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 



documents, insurance policies, newspapers, and other 
articles. 

134. Opposition to the Stamp Act. — News of the new 
attempt to break up their profitable trade with the French, 
Spanish, and Dutch raised a storm of protest in the northern 
colonies. 

When it became known that Parliament had levied the 
stamp tax on the colonies, indignation became general. 




Patrick Henry Speaking Before the Virginia Assembly 

The Virginia Assembly adopted a series of resolutions written 
by Patrick Henry, which declared that the right of Vir- 
ginians to tax themselves in their own assembly had long 
been recognized by the British government and had never 
been given up. Any one who maintained the contrary 
was an enemy of the colony. It was in support of these 



THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION 125 

resolutions that Henry uttered the famous words : " Tar- 
quin and Caesar had each his Brutus ; Charles I his Crom- 
well ; and George III — (here cries of " Treason ! Treason ! " 
from the Speaker and others were heard) — may profit 
by their example. If this be treason, make the most 
of it." Henry's resolutions were widely pubhshed and had 
immense influence in stirring up opposition to the Stamp 
Act. 

When the act was debated in the British House of Com- 
mons, a member. Colonel Barre, spoke against it and 
praised the colonists as " sons of liberty." The phrase 
was caught up m America and secret societies were formed 
whose members, calling themselves "Sons of Liberty," 
undertook to prevent the enforcement of the Stamp Act. 
In some places they resorted to mob violence, forcing stamp 
agents to resign, and breaking into buildings where they 
thought stamps were kept. In Boston they wrecked the 
house of Chief Justice Hutchinson and destroyed his library, 
one of the most valuable in the colonies. The work of these 
mobs was so well done that few attempts were made to sell 
the stamps. 

135. The Stamp Act Congress. — At the request of 
Massachusetts, delegates from nine colonies met in New 
York in October, 1765, to protest to the King and Parlia- 
ment against the Stamp Act. The resolutions of the con- 
gress declared that the colonists could not be taxed except 
by the consent of their representatives. As their repre- 
sentatives sat in the colonial assemblies and not in British 
Parliament, it was evident to them that colonial taxes must 
be voted in the assemblies and not in Parliament. 

The Stamp Act Congress was the first general meeting 
of the colonies brought about by the new tax policy of the 



126 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 



British government. It has been said that the American 
Union actually began here. 

136. The Repeal of the Stamp Act (1766). — Not content 
with the protest of the Stamp Act Congress and the riots of 
the Sons of Liberty, the colonists formed agreements not 

to use goods manufactured in 
England. At the same time 
American merchants agreed to 
withhold the payment of debts 
which they owed in England. 
These agreements severely in- 
jured the business of English 
merchants, and many of them 
jomed in askmg for a repeal 
of the act. When the question 
of repeal came up in the House 
of Commons, Pitt " rejoiced 
that America had resisted." 
He was glad that Americans were not " so dead to all the 
feelings of liberty, as voluntarily to submit to be slaves." 

The act was repealed in March, 1766, just a year after 
its passage. But the repeal was accompanied by a Declar- 
atory Act, asserting the right of Parliament to legislate for 
the colonies " in all cases whatsoever." 

News of the repeal was received with outbursts of joy 
in the colonies. New York erected statues to Pitt and 
George HI. The colonists thought the fight against Par- 
liamentary taxation was won. But less than ten years 
later they melted the lead in the King's statue to make bul- 
lets to shoot at his soldiers. 

137. No Taxation without Representation. — Both in 
England and America men said there must be no taxation 




William Pitt 



THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION 127 

without representation; but the phrase did not have the 
same meaning on both sides of the Atlantic. In England 
it meant merely that there must be no taxation without 
the consent of Parliament ; that is, that the King must not 
be able to tax his subjects. According to the English 
view, Parliament represented Englishmen everywhere, 
whether at home or in the colonies, and, therefore, Par- 
liament had a right to tax the colonists as well as the people 
at home. But the colonists had long been in the habit of 
looking upon their assemblies as being for them what the 
Parliament was for Englishmen at home. For three 
quarters of a century at least, most of the colonies had 
seen colonial taxes levied in colonial assemblies. When 
they spoke of no taxation without representation, they 
meant no taxation except in assemblies whose members 
had been chosen by the colonists. 

There was here an honest difference of opinion, and, as 
neither party to the dispute would give way, a conflict was 
inevitable. 

138. Additional Taxes. — The joy of the colonies over 
the repeal of the Stamp Act was brief. The next year 
(May, 1767) a new way of raising revenue in America was 
devised. Duties were to be collected on glass, red and white 
lead, paper, painters' colors, and tea imported into the 
colonies. 

The new law was made more hateful by the method 
adopted to enforce it. Persons accused of evading the law 
were to be denied the right of trial by jury. Besides, revenue 
received under the act was to be applied to the payment 
of the salaries of colonial governors and judges, thus taking 
away from the colonial assemblies all control of those 
officials. 



128 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 



At the same time, by a special act, Parliament took away 
the powers of the New York assembly because it refused to 
furnish supplies to the British soldiers sent to it. 

139. The Colonies Defy Parliament. — As soon as word 
of these new attempts to make the colonies support the 
army reached America, public feeling was aroused. Sam- 
uel Adams, a shrewd political leader in Boston, advised the 

Massachusetts assembly to send a 
circular letter to the other colonies 
appealing for a united opposition 
to the new taxes. The letter was 
well received, and most of the co- 
lonial non-importation agreements 
were again put into force. 

The British government was 
\ angered by the Massachusetts cir- 
cular and tried to compel the as- 
sembly to recall it, at the same 
time threatening to dissolve the 
other colonial assemblies if they welcomed the Massachu- 
setts protest. The colonies defied Parliament and com- 
mended the stand of Massachusetts. Otis, speaking in the 
Massachusetts assembly, warned Britain to " rescind her 
measures or the colonies are lost to her forever." 

140. Mob Violence. — Besides protesting against the 
new law through their assemblies, the colonists sought to 
prevent by forceful means the collection of the duties. Riots 
were frequent and cargoes of dutiable goods were unloaded 
by armed men who prevented the collection of the imposts. 
Officers charged with the execution of the laws were tarred 
and feathered. In response to the appeal from the customs 
officers at Boston, two regiments of British soldiers were 




Samuel Adams 



THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION 



129 



sent to that city in September, 1768. Parliament fully 
approved the use of the army to enforce the laws, and in 
1769 further outraged American feeling by suggesting that 
the colonial leaders might be sent to England for trial 
under an old law of the time of Henry VIII. Virginia led 
in a vigorous protest against this proposed invasion of a 
fundamental right of an Englishman to be tried by a jury 




"U^^^is*— Ol-l EncrAvd Printed !*SoId 6y Rwi. BzvLKZScSTw\ 

The "Boston Massacre" 

of his own neighborhood. Public opinion was becoming 
aroused and all the colonies joined in the Virginia protest. 
The presence of an armed force in Boston irritated the 
people, and frequent attacks were made on soldiers in the 
streets. An encounter between some of the townspeople and 
the soldiers took place March 2, 1770; three days later a 
squad of soldiers, one of whose members had been struck 



I30 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

with a club, fired on the mob, kilHng five persons and wound- 
ing six others. This aff^ray, which became known as the 
" Boston Massacre," created deep resentment against the 
British government not only in Massachusetts but in the 
other colonies. 

141. The Tea Tax. — These new methods of taxing the 
colonies were not as successful as the King and his advisors 
had hoped. The money collected scarcely paid the cost 
of collection, and on the day of the " Boston Massacre " 
Lord North, the new Prime Minister, announced his in- 
tention of repealing the duties with the exception of that on 
tea. The tax on tea was retained for the same reason that 
the Declaratory Act of 1766 was passed, — to proclaim the 
right of Parliament to tax the colonies. But the colonists 
were resolved not to pay the tax, and formed societies whose 
members were pledged not to drink tea on which the duty 
had been paid. 

142. The Formation of Committees of Correspondence. 
— The need of organizing to assert the rights of the colonists 
began to be felt, and in 1772 Samuel Adams suggested the 
appointment of Committees of Correspondence in the various 
towns of Massachusetts. His suggestion was accepted by 
two hundred towns, and during the next year the com- 
mittees thus formed became the foundation of an organiza- 
tion that was soon to include all the colonies. In March, 
1773, Virginia proposed committees for intercolonial cor- 
respondence, and by July of that year committees were 
at work in six colonies building the foundation for a per- 
manent union. 

143. The Boston Tea Party (December, 1773). — The 
King and his advisers had not repealed the tax on tea, be- 
cause they were very anxious to show that they had a right 



THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION 131 

to tax the colonies. But the colonists boycotted English 
tea and either smuggled tea from Holland or went without 
it. In 1773 Lord North made a new attempt to induce 
the colonists to a;ccept the tax. Up to this time tea coming 
into England paid a duty of a shilling a pound and then 
three pence more on being imported into America. It was 
now arranged that tea coming to America should pass 
through England free of charge and pay only the three 
pence tax in America. Thus the colonists could buy tea 
much cheaper than people in England and in fact cheaper 
than it could be smuggled. 

Thinking that the colonists could not resist buying upon 
these easy terms, English merchants sent over cargoes of 
tea to the chief colonial ports, but everywhere the sale of 
tea was forcibly resisted. In Charleston it was stored until 
after the Declaration of Independence, and in New York 
and Philadelphia the tea ships were sent back to England. 
In Boston the authorities made preparations to land the 
tea under the protection of the guns of the British navy, 
but before they could carry out their intention a party of 
about fifty men, dressed as Mohawk Indians and led by 
Samuel Adams, boarded the vessels (December 16, 1773) and 
emptied into Boston harbor tea worth about ninety thou- 
sand dollars. This wholly lawless destruction of property, 
directed by leading men of the colony, showed that the 
colonists were willing to go to extremes in their opposition to 
taxation. 

144. Massachusetts Is Punished. — The King and those 
who advised him were determined to make an example of 
Massachusetts. They were strengthened in this resolution 
by reports made by General Gage, who had recently re- 
turned from America. Gage assured the King that the 



132 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

colonists were great talkers but would quickly become 
*' very meek " if the King acted resolutely. 

The punishment of Massachusetts took the form of a 
series of laws known in England as the Repressive Acts 
and in America as the Intolerable Acts. 

(i) Of these the Boston Port Bill was the most resented. 
By it the port of Boston was closed and ships of war were 
placed in the harbor to see that the act was enforced until 
the King should be pleased to open the port. As the people 
of Boston depended almost entirely on their sea-going 
commerce, this act would have caused intense suffering had 
not food and money been given freely by the people of 
other colonies. George Washington of Virginia, it is re- 
corded, gave fifty pounds. 

(2) The Charter of Massachusetts was changed by the 
Regulating Act and the crown given the appointment of 
many executive and judicial officers that had formerly 
been chosen by the people of the colony. Town meetings 
were forbidden except when authorized in writing by the 
governor. This attempt to destroy popular government 
in Massachusetts aroused people outside that colony as 
well as within. If Parliament could thus set aside the 
charter of Massachusetts, it might soon attack the liberties 
of every colony in America. 

(3) The third act provided that officers accused of mur- 
der or other grave offenses be sent to England or to another 
colony for trial, if the act complained of was committed in 
suppressing a riot or enforcing the revenue laws. Parlia- 
ment thought that by this arrangement the officers would be 
more vigorous in enforcing laws. 

(4) To aid the enforcement of these acts, a fourth was 
passed, permitting troops to be quartered upon the people. 



I 



THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION 



133 



and General Gage, who favored repressive methods, was 
made governor of Massachusetts. 

145. The Quebec Act. — The Quebec Act, passed at 
the same time, though it had nothing to do with the trouble 
in Boston, greatly disturbed the colonists. By its terms, 
the province of Quebec, including the land between the 
Ohio and the Great Lakes, was established, and m the new 
province the Catholic religion was legalized. The land 
claims of Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, and 
Virgmia in the region north of the Ohio were disregarded. 
The loss of their lands and their fear of Catholicism increased 
the bitterness with which the colonists received the Re- 
pressive Acts. 

146. Suggestions for a Congress. — In May, 1774, 
when the news reached Boston that the port was to be closed, 




Raleigh Tavern, Williamsburg, Virginia 

the Correspondence Committees of Massachusetts appealed 
to the other colonies for united action. Virginia, through 
its House of Burgesses, was the first to answer. That 
body set aside June i, the day the Port Bill was to be put 
in force, as a day of fasting and prayer " to give us one 



134 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

heart and one mind firmly to oppose by all just and proper 
means every injury to American rights." The governor 
dissolved the assembly, but the members met at the Raleigh 
Tavern in Williamsburg the next day. They suggested 
that the interests of the colonies required an annual congress 
in which every colony would be represented. The other 
colonies welcomed the suggestion of Virginia and all but 
Georgia named delegates to the First Continental Congress, 
which met in Philadelphia in September. 

147. The First Continental Congress (1774). — This 
congress had no legal power to act for the colonies, but it 
recommended the formation of a large association whose 
members would be pledged neither to import English goods 
nor to export goods to any English port. Local com- 
mittees were to be appomted in each town or county to aid 
the work of the association, by making public the names 
of those who refused to take part in the anti-English boy- 
cott and in other ways to make life unpleasant for the 
Tories, as those who were not in favor of resistance were 
called. 

148. Preparing for Revolution. — The recommendation 
of Congress met with a general acceptance, and Committees 
of Public Safety were appointed in every colony to see that 
the non-importation agreement was carried out. Acts of 
violence were resorted to by the " patriots " in their cam- 
paign against those who refused to boycott English goods. 
In some of the colonies the governors grew alarmed at the 
growing spirit of resistance and refused to let the assem- 
blies meet. But in spite of this interference, local com- 
mittees undertook to arm and equip troops. 

As the time approached for the meeting of the Second 
Continental Congress, it was seen that the King and his 



THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION 



135 



ministers had no thought of acceding to the colonial demands. 
Delegates were, therefore, chosen for the meeting in May, 
1775. But before they came together in Philadelphia, 
there was heard in the north " the clash of resounding arms." 
149. Fighting at Lexington and Concord. — General 
Gage had been sent to Massachusetts as governor to enforce 
the Intolerable Acts. He was unable, however, to exercise 
much authority outside of Boston, which he had fortified 




The Battle ok Lexington 



against attacks from the colonists. As the spring of 1775 
approached, he saw that his danger was increasing, and, to 
offset the preparations of the colonists, he undertook to 
seize military stores which had been gathered at Concord, 
about eighteen miles from Boston. But the patriot party 
was on the watch, and when eight hundred British troops 
left Boston on the evening of April 18 their departure 
was soon made known. Across the Charles River, Paul 



13^ HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

Revere, who had seen a signal in the tower of the North 
Church, mounted his horse and galloped off to rouse the 
minutemen of the neighboring towns. At Lexington, 
which they reached at daybreak, the British found sixty 
minutemen drawn up to bar the way. At a volley from the 
British guns the militia fled, leaving eight of their number 
dead and ten wounded. Going on to Concord, the regulars 
destroyed the stores that the townspeople had not time to 
carry away. By this time large numbers of militia had as- 
sembled and the British began a hasty retreat. From 
behind rocks and trees and fences the Massachusetts men 
fired at the retreating column. Nearly three hundred 
British soldiers were among the killed, wounded, and missing, 
and the loss would have been greater but for the timely aid 
of 1500 fresh troops sent by Gage from Boston. Ninety- 
three of the militia were killed and wounded. Thousands 
of volunteers followed the British to Boston and laid siege 
to that town. 

150. The Second Continental Congress (1775). — The 
Second Continental Congress met in Philadelphia, May 
10, 1775. In spite of the bloodshed at Lexington and 
Concord, Congress hoped for a peaceful settlement of the 
dispute with England. An address to the King was adopted, 
in which he was asked to withdraw his soldiers and repeal 
the laws to which the colonists objected. But while hoping 
for peace. Congress meant to prepare for war, if war was 
to come. Though it had no legal authority to assume the 
powers of government, people everywhere were looking to 
Congress for leadership. After a few weeks it decided to 
raise money to arm and feed the soldiers about Boston, 
and appointed George Washington commander-in-chief 
of the Continental armies. 



I 



THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION 



137 



151. The Battle of Bunker Hill. — Before Washington 
arrived to take command of the troops that were besieging 
Boston, a battle had been fought at that place. American 
forces under Colonel Prescott took possession of Breed's 
Hill, a height north of Boston, and began the construction 
of earthworks from the shelter of which they might com- 
mand the entrance to the inner harbor. To prevent the 
completion of the work. General Gage ordered an attack upon 




Fortifying Breed's Hill 

the American position, June 17. The battle which followed 
has always been known as the battle of Bunker Hill from 
the name of a neighboring height which Prescott had been 
ordered to fortify. As the English troops in their red 
coats marched steadily up the hill, the American leader 
commanded his men not to fire " until you see the whites 
of their eyes." His order was obeyed, and when at 
length a murderous volley sped from the American line, 
the British attack was broken with terrible loss. A second 



138 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 



time the British troops came and again were driven back. 
Reenforced, they made a third assault. But now the am- 
munition of the colonial soldiers was gone and the men, 
fighting only with the butts of their muskets, retired, 
leaving the British in possession of the field. 

The British losses were over one thousand killed and 
wounded, while the Americans lost less than half that 

number. " I wish we 
could sell them another 
hill at the same price," 
said one of the Ameri- 
can officers. The fight 
so stirred the anger of 
both parties to the con- 
flict that a peaceful set- 
tlement of their dispute 
was no longer possible. 
It showed also that Gage 
was mistaken when he 




thought a few regiments would be enough to keep the colo- 
nists in order. He was removed from command and his 
place given to Sir William Howe. 

152. The Evacuation of Boston. — Washington took 
command of the colonial troops at Cambridge, July 2. 
His first work was to drill his men, who had little military 
training, and to prevent them from leaving when their 
short terms of enlistment expired. There was much jeal- 
ousy among the officers, and ammunition and other supplies 
were lacking, but Washington's reputation as a soldier in 
the French and Indian War won their respect, and his vig- 
orous insistence on discipline soon brought order into the 
affairs of the camp. 



THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION 



139 



In the early summer of 1775, Ethan Allen, of Vermont, 
with troops he had raised in New England, had taken Ticon- 
deroga and Crown Point on Lake Champlain and with 
them considerable stores of ammunition and guns. These 
were brought to Washington's army and proved to be of great 
value. The capture of a British vessel with 2000 muskets 
and a large amount of ammunition was also of assistance. 

By the following spring Washington was ready to press 
the siege, and on March 4, 1776, seized Dorchester Heights 




The British Evacuate Boston 

to the south of Boston and placed cannon to command the 
city harbor. Howe realized that it was possible for Wash- 
ington to destroy every ship in the harbor and decided to 
abandon the city. 

He embarked his army and on March 17 began the evacu- 
ation of the city. Sailing for Halifax, he took with him 
about a thousand people of Boston who were loyal to the 
King and did not wish to remain in the city when it fell into 
the hands of the " rebels." 



140 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 




153. The Attack on Canada. — While Washington was 
preparing for his attack on Boston, an attempt was made 

to take Canada, where it was 
thought the French population 
would be glad to be released from 
British control. A force of 1500 
men under General Richard Mont- 
gomery, marching by way of Lake 
Champlain, took Montreal and pro- 
ceeded down the St. Lawrence to 
Quebec. Another force of iioo, 
under Benedict Arnold, had crossed 
Maine, losing over half its strength 
in the terrible northern winter. 
The two leaders united their forces 
and attacked Quebec the last day 
of the year 1775, but the attack 

was repulsed and Montgomery was slain. The following 

spring Arnold was driven from Canada. 

The Declaration of Independence 

154. The Growth of the Spirit of Independence. — When 
the news of Bunker Hill reached England, the King and his 
advisers determined that the rebellion must be put down 
with an iron hand. They refused even to receive the 
petition of the Second Continental Congress, which humbly 
asked for a redress of grievances. The Americans were 
declared rebels, and Parliament undertook to close all the 
American ports to commerce. Soldiers were hired from 
petty German princes to fight in America, and, as a further 
indication of King George's anger, the town of Falmouth in 
Maine was burned. 



Arnold's Attack on Quebec 



THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION 



141 



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Announcing the Declaration of Independence 



142 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

Americans who talked publicly of separating from Eng- 
land were not numerous in the early months of 1775, but, 
as the unyielding attitude of the King came to be known, 
the idea of independence spread among the " rebels." As 
late as September, Jefferson still looked " with fondness 
towards a reconciliation," and the American army chap- 
lains in public services in camp still prayed for King George. 
But in the early days of 1776, the great change which had 
come over public opinion was seen in the enthusiasm which 
greeted a pamphlet called Common Sense, written by 
Thomas Paine, an Englishman who had recently come to 
America. 

Common Sense appeared in January, 1776, and in three 
months a hundred twenty thousand copies were sold, — 
enough to give every third family in America a copy. It 
was a plea for independence, and its wide circulation showed 
how well its author read the thoughts of the " rebels." 
He declared that the period of debate was closed : that 
arms must decide ; that government of our own was our 
natural right ; that the King of America reigned above and 
did not make havoc of mankind like the royal brute of 
Britain. When sentiments like these became popular, a 
declaration of independence was not far off. 

155. The Declaration of Independence. — Richard Henry 
Lee, of Virginia, on June 7 introduced in Congress a resolu- 
tion declaring that the colonies are and of right ought to be 
free and independent. On July 2 Lee's resolution was 
adopted. John Adams, a Massachusetts delegate and one 
of the first advocates of independence, expressed his joy 
over the event in a letter to his wife in which he said : 

The second day of July, 1776, will be the most memorable epoch in 
the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by 



THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION I43 

succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to 
be commemorated as the day of deHverance, by solemn acts of devotion 
to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, 
with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from 
one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forever- 



A committee of Congress had been appointed to draw up 
a statement of the reasons which led the colonies to assert 
their independence. This statement in eloquent language 
pointed out the belief of the colonists that all men are 
created equal, and that they are endowed by their Creator 
with certain inalienable rights, among them life, liberty, 
and the pursuit of happiness. It is the duty of the govern- 
ment to protect these rights, and, if it fails, it is the duty of 
the people to set up a new government. Many cases in 
which the British government had trampled on American 
rights were pointed out, and it was shown that appeals to 
the English King and people were of no avail. There was 
nothing for the colonies to do but to set up a government 
of their own. 

The committee's report, which was written by Thomas 
Jefferson and is known as the Declaration of Independence, 
was accepted by Congress on July 4. It made so deep an 
impression on the minds of the Americans that they chose 
the day of its acceptance, July 4, as their great anniversary 
festival and not July 2 as John Adams predicted. 

The War before the French Alliance 

156. The British Plan to Capture New York and Charles- 
ton. — After Howe sailed away from Boston, the first serious 
attack made by the British was at Charleston, South Caro- 
lina. There were many Loyalists in the South, and it was 



144 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 



thought that the presence of even a small army in that sec- 
tion would prevent the Southern States from taking part in 
the war. A British fleet, carrying an army under General 
CHnton, reached Charleston in June, but was driven off' with 
great damage by Colonel Moultrie, who commanded the 




Defending the City of Charleston 



fort on Sullivan's Island near the entrance to Charleston 
harbor. While Clinton was making his attempt to capture 
Charleston, Howe determined to occupy the important 
city of New York. Washington recognized the importance 
of New York and undertook to defend it with the troops at 



THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION 145 

his command. He fortified the city and placed a strong 
force across the East River on Long Island. 

157. The Battle of Long Island. — Howe, who at times 
showed a great deal of energy, decided that the easiest way 
to approach the city was by Long Island. Toward the end 
of August, 1776, he landed his army and by a night march 
surprised the American force under General Putnam at 
Brooklyn Heights and defeated it. Washington secured 
boats, and under the protection of a heavy fog, took the 
beaten army back to New York. He now felt unable to 
hold the city and withdrew up the Hudson. 

158. The Retreat through New Jersey. — A few months 
later Howe took Forts Washington and Lee, which guarded 
the Hudson above New York ; with these posts the Amer- 
icans lost 2600 of their best troops and much valuable war 
material. Washington, meanwhile, had moved his army 
to the New Jersey side of the river and taken up a position 
at Newark. His soldiers were becoming discouraged and 
many of them went home. Howe thought the war was 
about over and sent Lord Cornwallis with 5000 men to 
complete the destruction of the pafiot forces. Washing- 
ton retreated through New Jersey and crossed the Delaware 
into Pennsylvania on December 8, just as the British troops 
arrived at Trenton. The American leader seized the boats 
for many miles along the river and made his army safe from 
pursuit. 

The patriot cause looked hopeless, and Howe's offer of 
pardon to those who would submit was accepted by thousands. 
Congress fled from Philadelphia to Baltimore and gave 
Washington power to carry on the war as best he could. 

159. American Successes at Trenton and Princeton. — 
By a bold stroke Washington revived American hopes. 

L 



146 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

At Trenton there was a force of 1400 Hessians who had 
been hired by George III to make war on the colonists. On 
Christmas night Washington crossed the Delaware, surprised 
the Hessians, took 1000 of them prisoners, and got back to 
Pennsylvania in safety. He again crossed to New Jersey 
and, on January 3, 1777, defeated a strong British force at 
Princeton. 

These striking successes gave the patriots confidence in 
their leader and promoted the enlistment of new troops. 
The British also learned to respect the fighting qualities of 
Washington and withdrew to New York. 

160. The British Plans for 1777. — Washington passed 
the winter at Morristown, New Jersey, trying very hard to 
build up his forces, but in spite of liberal offers he had only 
4000 regular troops by spring. Besides these he had some 
regiments of militia. It was not a very large force to oppose 
the armies which England was now preparing to put in the 
field. 

A large force which the British had in Canada, under 
the leadership of General Burgoyne, was ordered to join 
Howe on the Hudson by way of Lake Champlam. An- 
other force, under St. Leger, was to come from Oswego, 
on Lake Ontario, through the Mohawk Valley. The English 
ministry thought that the junction of these forces and those 
which Howe had m New York would permit that commander 
to put a speedy end to American resistance. 

But the ministry's plans were doomed to failure. Bur- 
goyne had been a capable soldier in Europe but proved a 
poor leader in the American wilderness. The ministry 
neglected to send orders to Howe to advance up the Hud- 
son to assist Burgoyne, and Howe, left free to make his 
own plans, decided to capture Philadelphia. 



THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION 



147 



161. The Occupation of Philadelphia by the British (Sep- 
tember, 1777). — In the summer of 1777, Howe put his 
army aboard a great fleet which he had collected at New 
York, and sailed for Chesapeake Bay. Marching overland 
from the head of the bay, he met and defeated Washington's 
troops at Brandywine Creek 
on September 11. He then 
entered Philadelphia 
Early in October 
Washington under- 
took to drive out 
the enemy. He 
attacked the 
British 
camp 



at Ger- 

mantown, 
a few miles 
from the city, 
but a dense fog 
spoiled his plans 
and he was again 
beaten. 
The capture of Philadel- 
phia was of little value to the 
British, as Congress escaped 
to Lancaster, where it continued its session. Had Howe 
gone to the aid of Burgoyne, he might have brought the 
war to a close by preventing the disaster that overtook the 
British forces in the north. 

162. Burgoyne's Slow Advance. — Burgoyne left Canada 
early in June, 1777, with about 8000 troops. In a month 
he had taken Fort Ticonderoga, but from there his progress 
was extremely slow, as the country was largely a wilderness 
and the roads were obstructed by trees felled by the retreat- 




Philadeiphia and Vicinity 



148 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

ing Americans. It was difficult to get the supply wagons 
through, and, by the time Burgoyne reached Fort Edward 
on the Hudson, he was fearful that his army would starve. 
He sent a force of 1000 men into Vermont to seize supplies 
at Bennington. John Stark, who had been a colonel in 
Washington's army, raised a force of New Hampshire militia 
and captured 800 of the British. This exploit stirred the en- 
thusiasm of the New Englanders, and thousands of them took 
up arms, hoping that Burgoyne's entire force might be taken. 

Hardly had Burgoyne heard the news of his heavy loss at 
Bennington when information came that he could expect 
no aid from St. Leger. That commander, proceeding from 
Oswego on Lake Ontario, made an attack on Fort Stanwix 
on the Mohawk River. The approach of an army of 800 
German farmers of the Mohawk Valley interfered with his 
plans; in the latter part of August, 1777, when a second 
American relief expedition under Benedict Arnold arrived 
from the American army on the Hudson, St. Leger took 
fright and fled to Lake Ontario. 

The American troops were much encouraged by their 
success at Bennington and the retreat of St. Leger. Militia 
from New England and New York joined the army in large 
numbers, and by September General Gage, the American 
commander, had 20,000 men with whom to face Burgoyne's 
force, which had been reduced to about 5000 by his loss at 
Bennington, by desertions, and by the necessity of leaving 
garrisons to protect his communication with Canada. A 
skirmish on October 7 cost Burgoyne 600 men and showed 
that he could not break through the American lines. He 
began to retreat, but at Saratoga he permitted himself to 
be surrounded, and on October 17 felt compelled to surrender 
his entire army. 



THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION 



149 




150 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

163. The Results of Burgoyne's Surrender. — The vic- 
tory of Saratoga revealed to the British government the 
difficulty of their task of conquering the colonies. The 
King sent commissioners to offer anything the Americans 
wanted, short of independence. But the French, who had 
watched the conflict with eager interest, now made an 
alliance with America, and the English commissioners had 
to go home empty-handed. 

Vocabulary 

advocate customs patriots trial by jury 

affray independence rescind veto 

boycott legality Tory 

Map Exercises 

Where was the province of Quebec located ? Show, on a map, the 
movements of the English and colonial armies during the campaigns 
of 1 776- 1 777. 

Locate : Concord, Lexington, Bennington, Ticonderoga, Trenton, 
Princeton, Saratoga. 

Questions 

I. Give three reasons why the colonists were becoming independent. 
2. How did the king misuse his veto power? 3. What was a "writ of 
assistance"? How were they abused by the English government? 
4. To whom did Otis refer when he said : "Acts of that kind had cost 
one king of England his head and another his throne" ? 5. What was 
the purpose of the stamp tax ? 6. Who was the Virginia leader in this 
"period of debate"? 7. Give the date and state the purpose of the 
Stamp Act Congress ? 8. What principle of taxation did it set forth ? 
How was this principle differently interpreted in England and in the 
colonies ? 9. How did Parliament re-assert its right to tax, after 
repealing the Stamp Act ? 10. Why did the colonies want to control 
the salaries of government judges, etc. ? 11. What two ways had colonists 
of protesting against these laws ? With what success did these protests 
meet? 12. What was the Boston Massacre? 13. Why was the tax 



THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION 151 

on tea retained r Why did the colonists refuse to drink tea ? 14. What 
was the purpose of the Committees of Correspondence ? Where 
were they started? How did they spread? 15. Why did England 
punish Massachusetts? 16. Explain the Boston Port Bill. 17. What 
attempts were made on popular government in Massachusetts ? Why 
were all the colonies alarmed ? 18. How were the land claims of the 
colonies threatened at this time ? 19. Give the date, the place of meet- 
ing, and the purpose of the First Continental Congress. 20. What was 
the most important thing done by this Congress? 21. Where is Con- 
cord ? What happened there ? 22. What did the Second Continental 
Congress attempt to do? What did it accomplish ? 23. What was the 
effect of the battle of Bunker Hill on the relations between England and 
the colonies ? 24. What were Washington's difficulties as commander- 
in-chief of the army ? 25. Describe Ethan Allen's great achievement. 
26. Why was a plan formed by the colonies to attack Canada ? 27. Give 
the contents of Thomas Paine's Common Sense. 28. Give the date, 
purpose, and contents of the Declaration of Independence. 29. How 
did New York fall into British hands ? 30. How did Washington restore 
confidence to his army and the people after repeated British victories 
in 1776-1777? 31. What was the British plan of campaign in 1777? 
32. How and why did the plan fail ? How was its failure received in 
England ? 

II 

164. The Alliance with France. — The French, from the 
beginning of the war, had shown a sympathetic attitude 
toward the rebelHous colonies of their traditional enemy ; 
they had given a practical turn to their sympathy by ad- 
vancing secret loans to Silas Deane, the American agent in 
Paris, and by inducing Spain to make similar loans in large 
amounts. Though the French government was not pre- 
pared in the first two years of the war to recognize American 
independence, many Frenchmen offered their services to 
the patriot cause. Best known among them was the Mar- 
quis de Lafayette, who, with thirteen other French officers, 
came to America in 1777. 



152 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 




The report of Burgoyne's defeat, which reached Paris 
in December, 1777, was received with great joy in the 
French capital. The king now offered openly to support 

the American cause, and 
on February 6, 1778, a 
treaty of alliance between 
France and the United 
States was signed. By 
its terms France recog- 
nized the independence of 
America, and the Americans 
^^jj^k^ on their part promised not 
■'■ '"''\\^ to make peace without the 
approval of France. At the 
same time a commercial 
Marquis de Lafayette treaty was arranged between 

the two countries. 
165. The Sufferings at Valley Forge. — News of the 
French alliance arrived in America at one of the gloomiest 
periods of the war. Washington and his troops in their 
winter quarters at Valley Forge were suffering extreme 
hardships. The soldiers were so poorly provided with food 
and clothing and their situation seemed so hopeless that 
nearly one fifth of them deserted to the British, who were 
living in excellent quarters a few miles away in Philadelphia. 
Congress was attempting to pay the soldiers and to pur- 
chase supplies by issuing great quantities of paper money 
which had almost ceased to have any value. Men in the 
army and in Congress turned against Washington and 
sought to deprive of his command the one man who was 
able to keep the patriot forces together. The saddest part 
of the story of Valley Forge is that the sufferings of the 



THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION 



153 



soldiers were unnecessary. Their route as they marched to 
their winter quarters could be traced by the blood from their 
unshod feet, but at the same moment, as John Fiske has 
pointed out, " hogsheads of shoes, stockings, and clothing 




A Winter at Valley Forge 



were lying at different places on the route and in the woods, 
perishing for want of teams or of money to pay the team- 
sters." The country was well able to feed and clothe its 
troops, but the congressional government was inefficient. 

It was fortunate that the English military leaders were 
men of little ability. Their lack of vigor permitted the 
conflict to drag on until the forces of America and France 
could be joined for the decisive blow. 

i66. The Evacuation of Philadelphia. — The French 
alliance brought about a change m England's plans. As a 
result, Sir flenry Clinton, who had succeeded Howe in 
command at Philadelphia, was ordered to concentrate his 
forces at New York. He left Philadelphia June i8, 1778. 
Washington quickly followed in pursuit and ten days later 



154 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

came up with Clinton near Monmouth, New Jersey. The 
American leader's plans for a vigorous attack on the enemy 
were defeated by the treachery and disobedience of General 
Charles Lee, who was to lead the advance. Early in the 
engagement Lee ordered a retreat, and only the timely 
arrival of Washington prevented a disaster. The American 
lines were re-formed and the British advance was stopped. 
Clinton did not care to seek a decisive battle, but hurriedly 
moved off to New York, where he arrived in safety, 

167. Loyalist Aid to the British. — The indecisive field 
of Monmouth proved to be the last important battle of the 
war in the North. Though minor engagements later took 
place in that section of the country, they had no great in- 
fluence on the final result. In 1779 Clinton made an effort 
to capture the American posts on the Hudson. He suc- 
ceeded in taking Stony Point and Verplanck's Point, but a 
few weeks later the American forces, under the leadership 
of General Anthony Wayne, in a well-planned night attack, 
recaptured Stony Point and destroyed it (July, 1779). Dur- 
ing this summer Clinton increased the horrors of war by 
promoting numerous raids on coast towns in New England 
and as far south .as Virginia, where buildings were burned, 
crops ruined, and other property destroyed. Many of the 
raiders who took part in these expeditions were "Tories," 
as the Americans who had remained loyal to the English 
crown were called. New York alone furnished over twenty 
thousand men for the British land and naval forces during 
the Revolution, and at one time it was said that the number 
of Loyalists among Clinton's forces exceeded Washington's 
Continental army. 

168. Indian Warfare. — Both sides in the conflict sought 
the aid of the Indian tribes of the frontier, but the English 



THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION 155 

were the more successful. In 1778 a force of Tories and 
Seneca Indians, under the leadership of the Tory Colonel 
Butler and his Indian ally, Joseph Brant, ravaged the 
beautiful Wyoming Valley in northwestern Pennsylvania, 
where they killed many women and children. In November 
of the same year Butler and Brant burned the village of 
Cherry Valley in central New York and murdered about 
fifty persons. 

Congress was finally aroused by these murderous raids 
and sent General Sullivan to punish the Tories and their 
Indian allies. In August, 1779, he defeated the Tory 
forces at Newtown, and later inflicted severe punishment on 
the Senecas, but the raids continued to disturb the frontier 
till the end of the war. 

169. The War in the West. — Early in the Revolution 
the Indians of the West were incited by the British to attack 
the American settlements in what is now Kentucky and 
Tennessee. The Cherokees in the South were soon com- 
pelled to make peace, but the tribes north of the Ohio 
continued their raids, and by the end of 1777 only a few 
hundred whites remained in Kentucky. Henry Hamilton, 
who commanded the British post at Detroit, promoted this 
Indian warfare by paying the savages for the scalps which 
they brought to him, thus earning for himself the title of 
the " hair-buying general." 

George Rogers Clark, an able frontier leader, planned to 
put an end to the Indian war by capturing the British posts 
in the northwest. With a commission from Governor 
Patrick Henry of Virginia, in the early summer of 1778, 
Clark, with 150 men, set out for the West. He floated down 
the Ohio to the mouth of the Cumberland and from there 
marched a hundred twenty miles across a difficult country 



is6 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 




C'V-*^.' J^ *• f' ^ '^' ^ 



The Expedition of George Rogers Clark 

to Kaskaskia on the Mississippi. The commander of this 
post was completely surprised and submitted without 
a struggle. When they found that their religion would be 
respected and that their fatherland was now fighting in 
alliance with the Americans, the French settlers readily took 
the oath of loyalty to the United States. Father Peter 
Gibault, the priest of the district, gave efficient aid to Clark, 
helping him to get volunteers from among the French 
residents, and, by a personal visit to Vincennes on the 
Wabash, persuading that community to accept the Ameri- 
can rule. 

General Hamilton, at Detroit, hearing of Clark's exploits, 
raised a force of British and Indians and recaptured Vin- 
cennes in December, 1778. But Hamilton's success was 



THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION 157 

brief; two months later Clark, with a force of one hundred 
seventy Americans and French backwoodsmen, suddenly 
appeared before the fort at Vincennes, and the " hair- 
buyer," finding resistance hopeless, surrendered with his 
garrison. 

From this time the posts which were gained by the military 
ability of Clark and the good-will of Father Gibault re- 
mained in American hands, and by the treaty of peace 
which ended the war the English gave up all claim to the 
Northwest. After the war the possession of these rich 
western lands in which all of the states were interested did 
much to hasten the formation of a national union. 

The Navy in the Revolution 

170. The Work of Privateers. — During the war the 
American navy was not able to compete with the great 
naval power of England, but by striking at English mer- 
chant ships it did great damage to the enemy's commerce. 
About fifty men-of-war, both large and small, were com- 
missioned by Congress during the conflict. Most of the 
states also had war vessels in commission, but chiefly for 
harbor defense. Private ship owners were given " letters 
of marque and reprisal," which permitted them to arm their 
ships and prey upon English commerce. In New England 
especially, great numbers of privateers, as these ships were 
called, were fitted out and won for their owners large profits 
from the sale of English ships and cargoes that they captured. 
London merchants estimated the value of the goods lost 
by capture during the first year of the war at £1,800,000. 
Even before the French alliance, the friendly attitude of 
the French permitted American privateers to bring their 
prizes into French ports for sale. 



158 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 



171. The Father of the American Navy. — The first 
vessel fitted out under the authority of the Continental 
Congress was the Lexington, so named for the first battle 
of the Revolution. John Barry, a native of Ireland who 
had come to Philadelphia as a boy, was commissioned 
captain of the Lexington early in December, 1775. He 
fought throughout the war, commanding various ships and 
greatly aiding the revolutionary cause. When Colonel 

John Laurens was 
named commissioner 
to France to secure 
sorely needed funds 
for the Continental 
army. Captain Barry 
was detailed to con- 
vey him across the 
Atlantic. A similar 
duty was laid upon 
him when Lafayette, 
after the victory of 
Yorktown, went to 
France on an im- 
portant mission. In after years, when Washington became 
president of the United States, steps were taken to provide 
a naval armament, and Barry was named the ranking oflftcer 
of the new navy. Shortly after his death in 1803 the title 
"The Father of the American Navy" was attached to his 
name. In 1914 the nation erected a monument to Captain 
Barry in the national capital. 

172. John Paul Jones. — John Paul Jones, a Scotchman 
by birth, became famous for his naval exploits in the Rev- 
olution. He received a lieutenant's commission the same 




Captain John Barry 



THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION 



159 



day that Barry was given command of the Lexington. 
Within a year he was made a captain and soon won fame on 
account of his raids upon Enghsh ships in English waters. 
In 1779 he secured from the French king four ships, the 
largest one being the Bon Homme Richard, of forty-four 
guns. Cruising in the North Sea near the mouth of the 
Humber he came up with a fleet of English merchantmen 
convoyed by the Serapis, a vessel of fifty guns, and another 
man-of-war. The fight which 
followed was a duel between the 
Serapis and the Bo?i Homme 
Richard. Finding his guns in- 
ferior to those of the enemy, 
Jones decided to run alongside 
the Serapis and board her. The 
first attempt failed and the Eng- 
lish commander called out to 
ask if he had struck his colors. 
" Struck ! " replied Jones, " I 
have not begun to fight." His 
second attempt to come alongside 
succeeded ; the ships were tied 

together and after a desperate hand-to-hand struggle the 
Serapis surrendered. Congress had a gold medal struck in 
honor of the victory, while the King of England knighted 
the captain of the Serapis for his heroic defense of his ship. 
" If I fall in with him again, I will make a lord of him," 
said Jones. 

173. Naval Aid of France, Spain, and Holland. — Though 
Barry and Jones, by their daring seamanship, taught the 
English to respect the small American navy, it was England's 
European enemies that took from her the mastery of the 




John Paul Jones 



i6o HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

sea. France, from the time of her alHance with America, 
attacked England upon the water; Spain soon gave aid as 
an ally of France, and, finally, England drove the Dutch 
into the ranks of her enemies. This powerful alliance 
gradually obtained control of the sea and thus France was 
enabled to send men and ships to strike at Yorktown the 
blow which decided the conflict. 

The War in the South 

174. The War in Georgia and North CaroHna. — Follow- 
ing the battle of Monmouth, the English turned their atten- 
tion to the South, where they were told there were a large 
number of Loyalists who would be glad to see that section 
of the country under English rule. After more than three 
years of fighting, the English held little of the territory of 
their rebellious colonies except New York and Newport, 
Rhode Island, so the prospect of a ready conquest of the 
South was all the more pleasing. Savannah was captured 
in December, 1778, and by the next spring nearly all of 
Georgia was held by the British. General Lincoln, who 
had done good work in the campaign against Burgoyne, 
was now in command in the South and he secured the 
cooperation of a French fleet under Count d'Estaing for 
an attack on Savannah. On October 9, 1779, after a siege 
of three weeks, an assault was attempted which ended in 
disaster. One thousand men were lost, among them the 
gallant Polish count, Pulaski, who had been in the American 
service for two years. The winter storms compelled the 
French fleet to withdraw and the siege was abandoned. 

In the winter following, Clinton arrived in the South 
with a fleet and an army greatly outnumbering that under 
Lincoln's command. Instead of keeping a line of retreat 



THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION 



i6i 



open to the interior the American leader permitted him- 
self to be shut up in Charleston, and in May, 1780, was 
compelled to surrender the city and his entire army. Clinton 
returned to New York, leaving Cornwallis in command. 
Colonel Tarleton, who was sent to ravage the interior of the 
South, defeated an American force at Waxhaw, where he sav- 
agely refused quarter to the Americans who fell into his hands. 
Over one hundred were killed, and one hundred fifty were 
severely wounded, after they had offered to surrender. 
One effect of this savagery was to stir up in many Southern- 
ers a desire for vengeance. So they organized themselves 
into irregular bands, which attacked small detachments of 
the English wherever opportunity offered. Francis Marion, 
Thomas Sumter, Andrew Pickens, and others earned fame as 
leaders of these guerrilla 
bands. 

175. The British Vic- 
tory at Camden. — After 
the loss of Lincoln's 
army, there was put in 
the southern field a 
new force, composed for 
the most part of two 
thousand well-drilled 
troops, sent from the 
Hudson by Washing- 
ton. The commander- 
in-chief wanted General 

Greene to succeed Lincoln, but Congress took the matter 
out of his hands and appointed General Horatio Gates, to 
whom Burgoyne had surrendered at Saratoga. At Camden, 
on August 16, 1780, Gates was crushingly defeated by Corn- 




General Nathanael Greene 



1 62 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

wallis. He fled from the field, riding sixty miles on the day 
of the battle and continuing his flight until he was nearly 
two hundred miles from the foe. His army was destroyed 
as a fighting force ; its losses included the brave Baron de 
Kalb, a French officer who had entered the American service 
early in the war and now gave his life in an attempt to 
undo the blunders of Gates. 

176. The Battle of King's Mountain. — Their victory at 
Camden pleased the British greatly. '' We look on America 
as at our feet," said Horace Walpole when the news reached 
England. As Cornwallis moved north after the battle 
many Loyalists joined his army, and he might well believe 
that the South would soon be in his possession. He sent 
Major Ferguson with a thousand Loyalists to the West to 
collect supplies and then rejoin him at Charlotte, North 
Carolina. On October 7, 1780, this detachment was sur- 
rounded by a force of backwoodsmen at King's Mountain. 
Ferguson and two hundred of his men were killed and the 
survivors were forced to surrender. 

The crushing defeat of Ferguson's army seriously inter- 
fered with the plans of Cornwallis, who had by this time 
entered North Carolina. Feeling the need of more men, 
he withdrew to South Carolina to await reinforcements. 
King's Mountain marked a turn in the fortunes of the war, 
though at the time neither the Americans nor the English 
were aware of it. 

177. A Time of Gloom. — The time was one of extreme 
depression and many despaired of American success. Not 
even at Valley Forge had the patriot cause seemed so hope- 
less. Washington himself had " almost ceased to hope." 
His troops on the Hudson were " constantly on the point 
of starving," he wrote. Mutiny and sedition had entered 



THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION 163 

the army and each month from one hundred to two hundred 
deserters joined the British camp at New York. Washington 
declared that unless aid reached him the situation " must 
soon become desperate beyond the possibility of recovery." 

The paper money issued by Congress was all but worth- 
less ; Samuel Adams, who was not given to extravagance in 
dress, wore a suit of clothes and a hat for which he had paid 
two thousand dollars in paper money. Had it not been for 
the money received from foreign loans, the army of Wash- 
ington would very likely have disbanded. From every side 
came reports that the people were tired of war and willing 
to accept peace at almost any price. 

In the midst of this depression came the news of the treason 
of Benedict Arnold (September, 1780). He had been put 
in command of the highly important post at West Point by 
Washington, who had complete confidence in him. Arnold, 
who had been a brave and capable soldier, had fallen deeply 
into debt, and had quarreled with Congress, which had 
refused him as rapid promotion as he thought his services 
merited. Prompted, no doubt, by his need of money and a 
desire for revenge, he offered to betray West Point to Clin- 
ton in return for 10,000 guineas and a Major-general's 
commission in the British arm}^ His plans became known 
and West Point was saved, though Arnold escaped to the 
British lines and received the reward of his perfidy. 

" Whom can we trust now ? " asked Washington when 
he heard of the treason. " Is Arnold the only traitor in the 
army or are others willing to sell themselves to the enemy ? " 
was a question that must have disturbed even the most 
hopeful among the patriot leaders. 

178. The American Victory at Cowpens. — After the 
flight of Gates from Camden, Greene had been sent South 



164 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 




A f, ^Ai3 

/ 
/' 

General Daniel Morgan 



to take command, and by the first of the year 1781 had got 
together 2300 men, about one half of them trained soldiers. 

Cornwallis had a force superior in 
numbers and entirely composed of 
veterans, and the American leader, 
therefore, was unable to force the 
fighting. In order to keep up the 
courage of the Westerners who had 
done such good work at King's 
Mountain, he sent General Morgan 
with a detachment of troops into 
the western country. With the 
American army thus divided, Corn- 
wallis was encouraged to put him- 
self between the two wings in order to destroy them 
separately. 

The British leader dispatched a force of about 11 50 
men under Tarleton to take care of Morgan in the West. 
Morgan meanwhile received reinforcements which brought 
his command up to 940 men, and on January 17 offered bat- 
tle at Cowpens, some miles west of King's Mountain. The 
American leader handled his force with great skill ; as his 
first and second lines gave way, the British thought the 
battle won and pushed forward in disorder only to be 
met with a withering fire from the third line, composed 
largely of veterans. At the same time a group of cavalry, 
held in reserve, attacked the British right flank. The 
enemy's disorder was complete, and after nearly two 
hundred British soldiers had been killed or wounded, 
six hundred others surrendered. This striking victory 
over superior numbers greatly encouraged the American 
troops. 



THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION 



165 



179. The Retreat of the British from South Carolina. — 

Cornwallis, who was only fifty miles away, soon heard of 
the disaster to Tarleton and hastened north to cut oflP Morgan 
before he could unite with Greene. But Morgan knew how 
dangerous his position 
was and began his re- 
treat on the afternoon 
of his victory at the 
Cowpens. At the same 
time Greene ordered the 
troops under his com 
mand to retreat to 
the north whde 
he rode across 
the country 
to jom y^^ ^ 

Morgan. 
The race 
quickly be- 
came exciting ; 
Morgan crossed the 
Catawba, January 24, 
with Cornwallis only 
twenty miles in the rear. 
Ten days later Morgan 
crossed the Yadkin, and 
here, although the sudden 
rising of the river delayed his pursuit, CornwalHs was in 
time to seize some of the wagons of the retreating Ameri- 
cans. The union of the American forces was effected a few 
days later, and in March Greene offered battle at Guilford 




'•••Greene — *—*-*Comwalli» 

The Field of the Campaigns 
OF Greene and Cornwallis 



1 66 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 



Courthouse in North Carohna. The Americans lost heavily 
but were able to withdraw in good order. Cornwallis, 
though holding his ground, had lost one fourth of his 
army and, as the inhabitants of the country failed to join 
his forces as he had been led to expect that they would, 
he withdrew to Wilmington on the coast. 

Greene now turned his attention to South Carolina, and 
by the end of summer, though several times defeated in 
battle, he had driven the British forces from every post in 
that state except Charleston. In Georgia the enemy held 
only Savannah. 

i8o. Cornwallis in Virginia. — General Cornwallis, in- 
stead of following Greene, turned to the north and toward 
the end of May entered Virginia. 
Here he was joined by three thousand 
troops under the traitor Arnold, who 
had been sent by Clinton to ravage 
the state. Cornwallis now commanded 
an excellent army of 5000 British 
veterans. Opposing him was a force 
of about 3000 militia under the leader- 
ship of Lafayette, who was assisted in 
raising and drilling additional forces 
by Baron von Steuben, a thoroughly 
trained Prussian officer. Cornwallis 
spent the summer in a vain attempt to entrap Lafayette 
and in August withdrew to the coast at Yorktown, on the 
peninsula between the York and the James rivers. 

181. Cornwallis Surrenders (October 19, 1781). — The 
position of CornwaUis was safe only so long as the British 
controlled the sea ; but a strong French fleet had appeared 
in the West Indies, and its commander, Count de Grasse, 




Baron von Steuben 



THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION 



167 



OUESAPEAKE 



had offered his services to Washington for the summer. 
Accordingly, it was agreed that De Grasse should move 
north and seize the entrance to Chesapeake Bay and so cut 
off Cornwallis from any relief by water, while Washington 
was to gather troops to aid Lafayette in the land attack. 
Late in August Washington left the Hudson at the head of 
two thousand of his own men and five thousand well-trained 
French troops. A French army had been at Newport, Rhode 
Island, for some time, and its commander, Count Rocham- 
beau, now joined with Washing- 
ton in the expedition against 
Cornwallis. On his way south 
word came to Washington that 
De Grasse had already arrived 
with not merely a powerful fleet, 
but three thousand French and 
Spanish soldiers whom he had 
taken on board in the West 
Indies. Upon hearing the news 
Washington was unable to con- 
trol his feelings. His companions 

were much astonished to see him wave his hat in the air 
and exhibit other indications of great joy. One of the 
Frenchmen reported that he had never seen a man so 
happy as was Washington on this occasion. 

When the American and French forces from the North 
joined the army that had been assembled by Lafayette and 
De Grasse, the position of Cornwallis speedily became hope- 
less. Early in September a British fleet had attempted to 
bring him aid, but had been beaten ofi^ by the French. 
Escape by sea thus became impossible, and now the army 
under Washington's command outnumbered the British 




^'ORKTOWN 



l68 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

troops two to one. During the early days of October, 
siege operations were pushed vigorously under the direction 
of French military engineers. Cornwallis made an at- 
tempt to escape by crossing the York River to the 
north of his position, but a storm blew his boats down- 
stream ; finding his situation entirely hopeless, he raised a 
white flag in token of surrender October 17. Two days 
later more than eight thousand British soldiers and seamen 
laid down their arms. 

182. The Peace of Paris. — The defeat of Cornwallis 
made the English government realize that the revolt of the 
American colonies had succeeded. " It 
is all over," exclaimed the King's chief 
minister when he heard the news of 
Yorktown. The English people no 
longer cared to support the war and 
welcomed the negotiations for peace 
which were begun in Paris during the 
summer of 1782, Franklin, the Ameri- 
can representative in France, was aided 
V in the negotiations by John Jay, who 
Benjamin Franklin had represented American interests 
in Spain. John Adams, minister to 
Holland, arrived in Paris before the business was concluded 
and was instrumental in securing for Americans the right 
to fish in Newfoundland waters, a right which was of 
special value to his New England people. After long dis- 
cussions and many delays, which took a year's time, a 
treaty of peace was signed at Paris, September 3, 1783, 
which not only recognized American independence but 
gave to the United States the vast territories east of the 
Mississippi River lying between Florida and the Great 





120° Longitude 110° Weet 100 '^ from 



Greenwich 80 



North America according to the Treaty of 1783 



I 



THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION 



169 




Washington Resigns His Command 



I70 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

Lakes. Florida, which extended westward to the Missis- 
sippi, was returned to Spain by Great Britain. 

183. Washington Resigns His Command. — Soon after 
news of the treaty of peace reached America, the British 
army evacuated New York and Washington's troops entered 
the city (November 25, 1783). Amid the rejoicings of the 
people, who welcomed him with bonfires and fireworks, the 
commander-in-chief prepared for his journey to Annapolis, 
where Congress was sitting, to lay down his command. He 
bade an affectionate farewell to his generals who had fought 
with him. " With heart full of love and gratitude I now take 
leave of you," he said to them. " I most devoutly wish 
that your latter days may be as prosperous and happy as 
your former ones have been glorious and honorable. I 
cannot come to each of you to take my leave, but shall be 
obliged if each one of you will come and take me by the 
hand." When the touching ceremony was at an end, they 
accompanied him to the ferry, where a barge was waiting 
to convey him to the New Jersey shore. 

Arriving at Annapolis, he was received with all honor 
by Congress, the officers of the state of Maryland, and 
other persons of prominence. In an address to Congress he 
formally laid down his command and took " leave of all of 
the employments of public life." 

He refused any reward for his services, asking only that 
he be reimbursed for the moneys he had advanced for the 
public benefit out of his private resources. Followed by 
the blessings of a grateful people, he withdrew to his home 
at Mount Vernon. 

Vocabulary 
alliance ally guerrilla warfare privateers 



THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION 171 

Map Exercises 

1. Locate: Monmouth, N. J., Stony Point, Cherry Valley, N. Y., 

Detroit, Vincennes, Savannah, Charleston, Camden, King's 
Mountain, Cowpens, Guilford Courthouse. 

2. Show by a diagram the position of Cornwallis at Yorktown, and 

the way he was finally surrounded by colonial forces. 

3. On an outline map of North America show the territory of Spain, 

England, and the United States, according to the treaty of Paris, 
1783- 

Questions 

I. Why did France sympathize with the colonies ? How did she show 
her sympathy ^ 2. What was the last important battle of the war in 
the North .? What did it accomplish ? 3. Trace the journey of Clark on 
your map. Why did his success prove of permanent importance ^ 
4. How did the weak colonies attack Great Britain on the sea ? Was this 
method effective.? 5. Who is the "Father of the American Navy"? 
Give a short sketch of his career. 6. Tell of the fight between the 
Serapis and the Bon Homme Richard. 7. Give two reasons why the Eng- 
lish transferred their attacks to the South. 8. Were their hopes realized 
in the early southern campaigns ? 9. What was the first colonial victory 
in the South ^. Why did it interfere with Cornwallis' plans .? 10. Do 
you understand why the paper money issued by Congress had so little 
value? How did it differ from our paper money of to-day? 11. Did 
Arnold's treachery injure the colonial cause? 12. What points of 
strategy explain the colonial victory at Cowpens? 13. What was the 
weakness of Cornwallis' position at Yorktown ? How did this prove his 
undoing? 14. Give the terms and the date of the treaty which closed 
the war. 



CHAPTER XI 



THE FORMATION OF THE UNION 




184. Adoption of the Articles of Confederation. — When 
Richard Henry Lee, in June, 1776, asked Congress to make 

a declaration of independence, he 
asked also that a " plan of con- 
federation " be prepared so that the 
states might have a central govern- 
ment to direct then affairs. The 
committee which was set to work 
to prepare the plan took a year and 
a half to complete its task, and it 
was not until 1781 that all the 
states agreed to accept the Articles 
of Confederation, as the plan was 
called. 

185. Dispute over the Western Lands. — This delay was 
due chiefly to the attitude of Maryland with regard to the 
ownership of the lands west of the Alleghenies. Under their 
colonial charters some of the states laid claim to western 
lands, but Maryland suggested that as all the states were 
engaged in winning these lands from Great Britain, all should 
share in the benefits to be derived from them. It was seen 
that if these valuable lands could be sold, a large part of the 
expenses of the war might be paid from this source, and if 

172 



^ -i 



Richard Henry Lee 



THE FORMATION OF THE UNION 173 

this money went to states which had western claims, the 
other states would be at a great disadvantage. Maryland 
was afraid also that if Virginia were permitted to retain 
her vast claims in the Northwest, she might become a menace 
to her weaker neighbors. Maryland, therefore, sugge^ 
that a number of new states be set up in the west as 
Congress might direct. 

The persistence of Maryland finally won the day, and 
Congress, in October, 1780, asked the states to give the 
western lands to the central government to be used " for 
the common good of the United States." Congress gave 
assurance that these lands would be " formed into separate 
republican states, which shall become members of the 
federal union and have the same rights of freedom, sov- 
ereignty, and mdependence as the other states." Early in 
1 78 1 It became evident that the states claiming western 
lands would cede most of them to the central government, 
and on March i of that year Maryland accepted the Articles 
of Confederation, which became effective at once. The 
lands in the west soon came into the possession of the United 
States and thus was founded the public domain in which 
the people of all the states had an interest. At the same 
time Congress was pledged to the policy, which has ever 
since been followed, of setting up new states in the west 
as soon as conditions permitted. 

186. The Weaknesses of the Articles of Confederation.— 
The Articles of Confederation, when finally adopted, gave 
but little power to the central government. The men who 
were fighting to throw off the control of Great Britain were 
not likely to set up another government with equally great 
powers. 

Each state, whether large or small, was to have one vote 



174 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

in Congress, though each was allowed from two to seven 
representatives. To act in important matters, the assent of 
nine states was necessary. Congress was given control of 
foreign affairs, including the making of war and peace ; it 
was to manage the post office and to regulate weights and 
measures and the coinage of money. 

Though the government under the Articles of Confedera- 
tion was a step towards a real union of the states, it was 
very weak in several particulars. 

(i) Congress had no power to levy taxes on individuals. ^ 
It could ask the states to give money for the army or for 
other purposes, but it had no way of forcing them to pay the 
money. In 1781 the sum of five miUion dollars was called 
for, but less than one tenth of it was paid. After a time 
Congress could not even pay the mterest on the sums it had 
borrowed. It issued over ^200,000,000 in paper money 
which became almost worthless. The story is told of a 
barber who papered the walls of his shop with the Continental 
currency, as it was called. Had Congress been given power 
to levy import duties, it could have carried on the war 
with vigor, thus making unnecessary a large part of the 
suffering of the soldiers. As the time for disbanding the 
army approached, the soldiers threatened to mutiny because 
their pay was so much in arrears. Even some of the officers 
high in command urged the use of force to secure their 
wages, and Washington had difficulty in preventing an 
outbreak. 

(2) Congress lacked power to regulate commerce. When 
England refused, in 1785, to make a commercial treaty with 
the Confederation, Congress could do nothing. Had the 
power to levy tariff duties been in the hands of Congress, 
England could readily have been brought to time by a 



THE FORMATION OF THE UNION 175 

threat to discriminate against English goods coming into 
American ports. 

The states used their control of commerce to injure their 
neighbors. Connecticut placed a higher duty on goods com- 
ing from Massachusetts than on the same goods coming from 
England. New York and Pennsylvania greatly injured 
the business of the New Jersey farmers by heavy import 
duties on garden produce. Maryland and Virginia developed 
a quarrel over the navigation of Chesapeake Bay and the 
Potomac, as did Georgia and South Carolina concerning 
the navigation of the Savannah. 

(3) Congress could not preserve public order. In 1783 
eighty mutinous soldiers appeared in Philadelphia. The 
members of Congress, fearing for their personal safety, fled 
from the city and took up quarters in Princeton, New Jersey. 

When Shays' Rebellion broke out in Massachusetts a 
few years later (i 786-1 787), the weakness of Congress was 
again revealed. It was a period of "hard times " and money 
was scarce. Debtors found it difficult to pay their debts 
and many were imprisoned in accordance with the custom 
of the times. They asked that paper money be issued to 
relieve the distress, and they complained that court costs 
and lawyers' fees were excessive. When their complaints 
were not heeded, a serious insurrection was organized in 
western Massachusetts under the leadership of Daniel 
Shays. There was danger that the national arsenal at 
Springfield would be attacked and Congress desired to 
raise troops to protect it ; but it acted so timidly and had 
so much difficulty in raising the necessary money that the 
rebellion was practically over when the congressional troops, 
consisting of one hundred forty-six men, arrived at Spring- 
field. 



176 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

(4) An amendment to the Articles of Confederation 
required the unanimous consent of the thirteen states. 
In 1 78 1 Congress asked for power to levy a tariff of five 
per cent on imports as a means of paying the debt con- 
tracted in the war. Twelve states consented, but little 
Rhode Island refused, and nothing could be done. 

187. Dissatisfaction with Articles of Confederation. — 
Men who were interested in seeing the debts of the Confedera- 
tion paid, and who wanted commerce regulated and public 
order maintained, became dissatisfied with the Articles of 
Confederation and began to talk of a change in the form of 
government. Some even despaired of the success of popular 
government and urged that a monarchy be established ; 
Prince Henry of Prussia, according to one account, was to 
be the first king. Men were thinking very seriously, said 
a writer of the time, " in what manner to effect the most easy 
and natural change of the present form of the federal 
government to one more energetic, that will, at the same 
time, create respect, and secure properly life, liberty, and 
property." 

A meeting held at Annapolis brought together a number 
of men who wished to see a more vigorous central govern- 
ment established. The meeting rose out of the desire of 
Maryland and Virginia to come to an agreement concerning 
tariff questions and the improvement of navigation on the 
Potomac. It was thought that the other states might like 
to discuss the question of uniform tariff rates, and so a 
general invitation was extended to them to send representa- 
tives to Annapolis, September i, 1786. Delegates from 
only five states attended the convention, but a report 
written by Alexander Hamilton of New York was adopted. 
His report asked for another convention in Philadelphia in 



THE FORMATION OF THE UNION 177 

the following May to consider the revision of the Articles 
of Confederation. 

188. The Northwest Ordinance of 1787. — In spite of 
its general incapacity, the Congress of the Confederation 
performed one great service before it passed out of existence. 
The lands north of the Ohio River had come into the posses- 
sion of the central government, and in 1787 Revolutionary 
soldiers and civilians were seeking to buy land and establish 
homes in the " Northwest Territory," as the district be- 
tween the Ohio and the Great Lakes came to be called. 
Congress had long been considering a form of government 
for the Territory, and the opportunity of selling lands in 
the West and paying some of its debts caused it to hasten 
the passage of the Ordinance of 1787 which outlined the 
government under which the settlers in the West would have 
to live. The Ordinance provided for religious freedom in 
the Territory, guaranteed the right of trial by jury, and 
granted other civil rights. Among its most important pro- 
visions was the one excluding human slavery from the 
Territory. 

189. Land Grants for Education. — An article of the 
Ordinance declared that " schools and the means of educa- 
tion shall forever be encouraged." Congress had already 
taken steps (1785) to encourage education in the West. 
In an ordinance of that year it had provided for a land survey 
whereby the new lands were to be marked olFinto townships, 
each six miles square, and to be subdivided into thirty-six 
smaller squares, which we now call sections. In each town- 
ship one section was to be given to the public authorities 
for the support of schools, A few days after the Ordinance 
of 1787 was passed, a grant of forty-six thousand acres of 
land in the new territory was given " for the support of 

N 



178 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

an institution of higher learning." Thus the custom of 
aiding schools and state universities by grants of land had 
its origin with the Congress of the Confederation. 

190. The Constitutional Convention (1787). — While the 
Congress of the Confederation in session at New York was 
preparing the Northwest Ordinance, delegates were arriving 
in Philadelphia to take part in the convention for which a 
call had been issued at Annapolis. The convention, which 
opened its session on May 25, 1787, was attended by rep- 
resentatives from all the states except Rhode Island. 
There were fifty-five representatives, but the usual number 
in attendance was about thirty-five. 

Many of the leading men of the time were present as 

delegates. Washington was unanimously chosen President, 

though some would have liked to see the 

venerable Benjamin Franklin given that 

honor. James Madison, later to be 

President of the United States, was one 

of the delegates. Though one of the 

youngest men in the convention, he was 

-|^=-"^■■|f^iafc^- a leader in its work, earning for himself 

M W the title " Father of the Constitution." 

g y/ Besides takmg an active part m the 

f "^^ debates, he made careful notes of the 

George Washington proceedings, which are now our chief 

source of information concerning the work 

of the convention. Among the delegates were Alexander 

Hamilton of New York, who had served on Washington's 

staff, and Robert Morris of Pennsylvania, who had worked 

so nobly to provide funds for the Revolutionary army. 

191. Compromises of the Constitution.^ — The larger 
states, led by Virginia, proposed that the states should be 




THE FORMATION OF THE UNION 179 

represented in Congress according to the number of their 
inhabitants ; the smaller states wanted to continue the 
old arrangement whereby the states, large and small, had 
an equal voice in Congress. The debate on this point was 
long and heated and threatened for a time to break up the 
convention. Finally it was agreed that the states were to 
be represented in the lower House of Congress according to 
the number of inhabitants, but in the upper House they were 
to have equal representation. Another difficulty arose over 
the question of regulating commerce. The Northern States, 
whose foreign trade was very important, wanted the central 
government to have control of commerce, but the Southern 
States feared that if Congress were given power to regulate 
commerce it might stop the importation of slaves and levy 
export taxes on tobacco and other important products of 
the South. A compromise was made, and Congress was 
empowered to regulate commerce, but it could not levy 
export duties, nor prohibit the importation of slaves before 
1808. Differences of opinion arose concerning other matters, 
but after many weeks of earnest labor the convention 
concluded its work, and on September 17 the Constitu- 
tion of the United States, under which we now live, was 
published. 

192. Changes Are Proposed. — The convention had not 
contented itself merely with revising the Articles of Con- 
federation ; it had decided upon a new plan of government. 

(a) Congress was to be given the power to raise revenue 
independently of the states. 

(b) The regulation of foreign commerce as well as com- 
merce between the states was to be the work of Congress. 

(c) A Supreme Court was provided for, which was to 
decide cases arising under the Constitution ; in addition it 



i8o HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

was to decide cases arising between states or citizens of 
different states. 

{d) The courts in the various states, in making their 
decisions, were to be bound by the Constitution and the 
laws of the United States. 

{e) A President was to be chosen who would have authority 
to execute the laws of the new government. 

The convention, besides deciding upon these important 
changes, arranged that the new government should go into 
operation when nine states accepted it. This was clelarly a 
violation of the Articles of Confederation, which provided 
for unanimous consent before changes in the form of govern- 
ment could be made. 

193. Ratification of the Constitution. — From November 
1787 to the following July, the campaign for the adoption of 
the proposed Constitution went on. Those who favored its 
adoption called themselves Federalists, and in their number 
were to be found the commercial classes, officers of the Rev- 
olutionary army, and, in general, the men of property and 
influence. The opponents of the Constitution were known 
as Anti-federalists, and included many who feared that the 
setting up of a strong central government would destroy 
the state governments. Of this number was the great 
Virginian, Patrick Henry. Others opposed the Constitution 
because it did not contain a bill of rights to protect trial 
by jury, freedom of the press, and other liberties of the 
people. There were others still who, living away from the 
centers of trade, had not felt the need of a stronger govern- 
ment and were content to leave things as they were. 

When New Hampshire ratified the Constitution, June 
21, 1788, the consent of nine states had been secured and the 
Federalists had won. Four days later the important state 



THE FORMATION OF THE UNION i8l 

of Virginia gave a favorable vote, and on July 26 New York 
decided to come in under the " new roof " as the Constitution 
was called. It was over a year later that North Carolina 
accepted the Constitution, and nearly two years before 
Rhode Island made up her m.ind to join her sister states. 

Many amendments were proposed in the conventions 
which ratified the Constitution. Some of these were 
accepted shortly after the new form of government was 
established and they now form the first ten amendments to 
the Constitution. 

194. Washington Chosen First President. — When the 
required number of states had ratified the Constitution, the 
Congress of the Confederation fixed upon New York as the 
seat of the new government and the first Wednesday in 
March, 1787, as the time for the assembling of the Senate 
and the House of Representatives. The electors, named 
in accordance with the new Constitution, unanimously 
chose Washington as President, with John Adams of Massa- 
chusetts as Vice-President. Early in April Washington was 
formally notified of his election and on the i6th of that 
month set out from Mount Vernon for New York. As he 
rode north he was greeted everywhere with enthusiasm, 
and was entertained wherever he stopped. Especially 
pleasing was the reception that awaited him at Trenton, 
where a triumphal arch was erected on a bridge over which 
he had led his army the night before the battle of Princeton. 
Here he was met by a group of women and girls who strewed 
flowers in his way and sang in his honor. To celebrate the 
event a special march was composed. Some years later 
when the song " Hail, Columbia " was written it was adapted 
to the music of the march which thus has been preserved 
to us. When Washington reached New York he was re- 



1 82 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 




THE FORMATION OF THE UNION 183 

ceived by the Governor and members of Congress amid the 
joyous shouts of the people and the thunder of artillery. 
On April 30, 1789, he took the oath of office on the balcony 
of Federal Hall at the corner of Wall and Broad streets, 
while the people shouted " Long live George Washington, 
President of the United States." 

Vocabulary 

amendment import ratification 

export internal revenue tariff 

Federalist ordinance 

Questions 

I. What did Maryland insist on before signing the Articles of Con- 
federation ? Give the date of her acceptance. 2. What had been the 
governing power in the colonies between the Declaration of Independence 
and the Articles of Confederation ? 3. What were the weaknesses of 
the Articles of Confederation ? How did the Constitution remedy 
these? 4. Give the purpose and date of the Northwest Ordinance and 
four important provisions. 5. Do the schools in your state receive 
revenue from state lands ? Who manages these lands ? What state 
in the Union has the wealthiest state lands .? 6. How did slavery add 
to the difficulties of the makers of the Constitution .? 7. When and 
how was our present Constitution ratified f 8. Find by consulting the 
Constitution of the United States the qualifications for the presidency. 



CHAPTER XII 

LIFE AT THE CLOSE OF THE REVOLUTION 

195. Population. — According to the first census of the 
United States, taken in 1790, the population was nearly 
4,000,000 persons, of whom about one fifth were negroes. 
About 4000 immigrants arrived annually from Europe dur- 
ing Washington's administration. Though the volume of 
immigration was not large, the population of the country in- 
creased very rapidly and great numbers pushed on to the 
western lands in search of homes. 

Most Americans in the days of Washington were farmers ; 
only about five per cent of the inhabitants lived in the 
cities and towns. In the South there was only one large 
city, Charleston, which had about 15,000 people. Rich- 
mond, the largest town in Virginia, had less than 4000 
inhabitants. In the North, Philadelphia, with 42,000 
people, was the chief city and the center of the grain export 
trade of the United States. New York ranked next in size 
with 32,000 people; by 1800 this great port had 60,000 
inhabitants; Boston, with 18,000, was the third city of the 
country ; another growing community was Baltimore, which 
had 13,000 people in 1790 but grew rapidly in the following 
years on account of the development of the rich Susquehanna 
Valley. 

184 



LIFE AT THE CLOSE OF THE REVOLUTION 



185 



196. The Growth of the West. — At the time of Wash- 
ington's inauguration, there were in Tennessee, Kentucky, 
and the Northwest about 100,000 white inhabitants. In- 
terest in this western country was growing, and by the year 
1800 the population had increased to nearly 400,000; 
Marietta, Cincinnati, Louisville, and other centers were 
already towns of some importance. In 1795 a treaty with 
Spain gave the people of the West the right to ship their 




Marietta, the Oldest Settlement in the Northwest 

products to the outside world by way of the Mississippi 
River. This right was of great value to the West and helped 
the growth of that section. 

In the years of Washington's presidency the Indians in 
the Northwest offered opposition to the advance of white 
settlement. They were supplied with ammunition by the 
British, who still held Detroit and other posts in the American 
territory and who were anxious to retain control of the 
valuable fur trade of the West. General Anthony Wayne 
was sent into the Indian country and in 1794, at the 



1 86 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 



battle of Fallen Timber in northwestern Ohio, subdued the 
hostile warriors. The Indians made peace the next year 
and gave up their claims to practically all of Ohio. 

During Washington's term of office the growth of the 
country was shown by the admission of three new states 
into the Union : Vermont in 1791, Kentucky in 1792, and 
Tennessee in 1796. 

197. Travel. — The two main routes to the West were 
from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh by wagon road and thence 



I 




Travel in Colonial Days 

by flatboats on the Ohio ; from southwestern Virginia 
to the upper waters of the Tennessee River over Daniel 
Boone's " Wilderness Road." 

In the early days of the republic travel was slow and 
difficult. In the more thickly settled parts of the country 
good roads might be found, but in general the roads were 
poor and in wet weather were likely to become impassable. 
Most of the traveling on land was done on horseback and 
in the uncomfortable stagecoach of the time. The stage 
journey from Boston to New York occupied six days, a longer 
time than now suffices to cross the continent. Forty miles 



LIFE AT THE CLOSE OF THE REVOLUTION 187 

a day in summer and twenty-five in winter was regarded as 
a highly satisfactory rate of travel. The hotel accom- 
modations outside of the larger towns were not inviting. 
Frequently the traveler would find that the only bed avail- 
able was one in a large room occupied by eight or ten other 
persons. The cooking was of an inferior quality and Euro- 
pean travelers, in particular, protested against the daily 
recurrence of fried bacon and corn bread. 

198. Slavery. — Negro slavery had existed from early 
times in America, but by the time the Constitution was 
adopted many Americans had begun to hope that the system 
might be abolished. Before the end of the Revolutionary 
War, Virginia and the states farther north prohibited the 
importation of slaves ; and by 1798 the more southerly states 
made similar prohibitions, which, however, were constantly 
violated by smugglers. Not only was the importation of 
slaves prohibited, but a movement was started to abolish 
slavery itself. This movement gained headway in the North, 
where slave labor was not very profitable and public opinion 
was easily aroused against it. By the end of the eighteenth 
century all the Northern States except Delaware had abol- 
ished slavery or taken steps toward its abolition. In the 
South JeflPerson, Washington, and other influential men 
raised their voices against slavery, but they were not listened 
to because slave labor was felt to be necessary. 

199. The Effect of the Cotton-gin upon Slavery. — The 
South at this time found a new reason for retaining slavery. 
In 1793, Eli Whitney, a New England school teacher residing 
in the South, invented the cotton-gin, a machine for separat- 
ing the cotton seed from the fiber. One slave could now 
clean as much cotton in a day as a hundred or more slaves 
could clean in the same time by the old hand method. The 




Cotton-gin 



1 88 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

recent development in England of machinery for spinning 
and weaving had created an enormous demand for cotton, 
and the South, with climate and soil well adapted to cotton 

culture, was able by means of 
Whitney's invention to supply 
the demand. In 1790 our coun- 
try raised less than two million 
pounds of cotton, none of which 
was exported. Ten years later 
the production of this staple 
had risen to thirty-five million 
pounds, and cotton had become 
our most valuable single article 
of export. Hundreds of thousands of acres of land were 
turned over to cotton raising, and a new field of labor was 
opened for vast numbers of slaves. Under these condi- 
tions the South grew less willing to give up the system of 
slavery. 

A successful cotton factory was set up in Rhode Island 
in the year of Whitney's great invention, and the spinning 
and weavmg of cotton soon became an important industry. 
200. Social Conditions. — Life among the American 
people was still very simple. A growing merchant class in 
the towns had sufficient wealth to imitate the luxury of 
European cities, but in general the homes and dress of the 
people were extremely plam. Carpets were few; most 
housewives had to content themselves with clean sand on 
the floors. Pewter or wooden dishes were used on the table 
in place of chinaware ; table linen was rarely used. Many 
vegetables, as cauliflower, head lettuce, sweet corn, rhubarb, 
and tomatoes, were not grown, while oranges and bananas 
were rare luxuries. The women of the household spun the 



I 



LIFE AT THE CLOSE OF THE REVOLUTION 189 

yarn and wove the cloth from which the family clothing 
was made. 

201. Education. — Elementary education did not prosper 
during the Revolutionary period or for many years after- 
wards. Schoolhouses were poorly furnished and textbooks 
were few; two months of schooling for boys in winter and 
a similar period for girls in summer gave about all the edu- 
cation that ordinary children received, and in many parts 
of the country they did not receive so much. Very few 
public schools were maintained ; private academies, how- 
ever, were growing in numbers and served to fit boys for 
college. A score of colleges were founded between the out- 
break of the Revolution and 1800, but the range of college 
studies was narrow and students were few. Two medical 
colleges had been founded, but the young man of the time 
who wished to practice medicine secured his training usually 
in the office of a practicing physician, just as the budding 
lawyer picked up his knowledge of law in a lawyer's office. 

202. Religion. — In New England the Congregational 
Church was the chief religious organization, as it had been 
for over a century and a half. The Unitarians, however, 
were growing in numbers, and the Episcopal Church was 
making progress among the wealthier classes. In Virginia 
and the South generally, the Episcopalians were the lead- 
ing denomination. The Wesleyan, or Methodist Church in 
America was separated from the English Methodist body 
in 1784 and made rapid progress in the South and West. 

The Catholic Church in America was under the same 
jurisdiction as the Catholic Church in England until 1784, 
when Pope Pius VI appointed the Reverend John Carroll 
of Maryland Prefect Apostolic for the United States. When 
Father Carroll assumed his duties, he found that there were 



190 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 



twenty-five priests and 25,000 Catholics in the entire country. 
In 1789 the episcopal see of Baltimore was established and 
Dr. Carroll was appointed its first bishop. The same year 
Bishop Carroll erected the first building of Georgetown 
college and two years later welcomed a number of priests of 
the order of St. Sulpice, Paris, who opened St. Mary's Sem- 
inary in Baltimore, which is still one of the leading schools 
of the country for the education of the clergy. The first 
priest ordained in the United States was the Reverend 

Stephen Badin, a native of France, 
who was raised to the priesthood in 
1793 and who became a successful 
missionary in the Northwest. 
Among the early students of the 
Sulpicians in Baltimore was the 
Russian Prince Gallitzin, who was 
ordained to the priesthood in 1795, 
and who, on account of his mission- 
ary zeal in Pennsylvania, became 
known as " The Apostle of the 
Alleghenies." 

In the early days of the Revolution Bishop Carroll had 
taken part in the embassy which asked the Canadians to 
join the colonies in their revolt against the British crown. 
He was a warm friend of Washington and Franklin and 
other American leaders. Upon the occasion of Washington's 
election he signed, on behalf of the clergy, an address to the 
President. To this Washington made a cordial reply, prais- 
ing the part which Catholics had taken in the Revolution. 



I 




Reverend Stephen Badin 



amendment 



Vocabulary 
episcopal penal 



guarantee 



LIFE AT THE CLOSE OF THE REVOLUTION 191. 

Questions 

I. Why did most of the inhabitants of the United States in 1790 live 
outside the towns ? 2. How did the treaty of 1795 with Spain stimulate 
the growth in the West ? 3. What three difficulties had to be overcome 
by settlers in the Western States ? 4. Note how early slavery became 
an important question. 5. How did the invention of the cotton-gin 
affect the slavery question in the United States ? 6. What everyday com- 
forts of to-day were lacking in 1790 ? 



CHAPTER XIII 

THE FEDERALISTS IN POWER 
The Administrations of Washington and Adams 

203. Organizing the Government. — Congress, which was 
already in session at the time of Washington's inauguration, 
made provision for three administrative departments to aid 
in the work of the government. To manage the business of 
these departments Washington appointed Thomas Jefferson 
Secretary of State, Alexander Hamilton Secretar}^ of the 
Treasury, and Henry Knox, a popular Massachusetts general, 
Secretary of War. Edmund Randolph of Virginia was ap- 
pointed Attorney General, to advise the President in legal 
matters. 

President Washington began the custom of calling together 
these officers to advise with him on important matters re- 
quiring his attention. In this way there was established 
what is known as the President's Cabinet. 

Congress decided that the membership of the Supreme 
Court should consist of a chief justice and five associate 
justices. At the same time Circuit and District Courts 
were provided for, and arrangements were made for appeals 
from the state courts to the United States Supreme Court. 
John Jay, of New York, a learned lawyer and a man of wide 
experience in public affairs, was appointed the first Chief 
Justice of the Supreme Court. 

192 



THE FEDERALISTS IN POWER 193 

204. Revenues Are Provided. — One of the most impor- 
tant problems of the first Congress was to provide revenues 
to take care of the running expenses of the government 
and pay the large debt left over from the Confederation. 
Congress took care of the immediate needs of the govern- 
ment by a tax on imports, and then waited for a report from 
Hamilton, Secretary of the Treasury, before taking up the 
payment of the old debts. 

205. Hamilton's Financial Plans. — Hamilton found that 
the United States owed about ^12,000,000 to foreign credi- 
tors, and his recommendation that this debt be paid met 
with a ready acceptance. He found that there remained 
unpaid about ^44,000,000 due to American creditors, and 
after some opposition Congress also agreed to pay this debt 
in full. But when Hamilton recommended that Congress 
pay the war debts of the various states, in addition to the 
old Confederation debts, he met with serious opposition. 
Some of the states had paid a large part of their war debts 
and they thought it unfair that those states which had been 
slow in paying should be rewarded from the public treasury. 
Besides, Madison, who had become one of the leading mem- 
bers of the House of Representatives, argued that nowhere 
in the Constitution was power given to Congress to assume 
state debts. Many members, especially those from the 
South, accepted Madison's argument, and it seemed that 
the assumption of the state debts was defeated. But Hamil- 
ton, knowing that the Southerners wanted the capital of the 
United States located on the Potomac, secured an agree- 
ment by which the assumption of the state debts was car- 
ried in return for the location of the permanent capital in 
the South. Assumption of the state debts cost the Federal 
Government about ^18,000,000. 



194 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

206. The First United States Bank. — Hamilton recom- 
mended the establishment of a great National Bank vrith 
branches in the chief cities. This, he said, would provide a 
safe place for the deposit of public funds and aid the govern- 
ment in issuing a sound paper currency, in collecting taxes, 
and in borrowing money. Many opposed the bank because 
they were afraid it would interfere with the business of the 
banks already in operation; others objected to it on the 
ground that the Constitution did not give Congress power 
to establish a bank. Finally Hamilton's plan was accepted, 
and the first United States Bank, with a charter for twenty 
years, began business in 1791. 

To meet the payment on the national debt. Congress 
accepted Hamilton's recommendation that the duties on 
imports be increased slightly and that a heavy internal tax 
be laid on distilled spirits. As a result of Hamilton's finan- 
cial plans, people came to have confidence in the new govern- 
ment. 

207. Rise of Political Parties. — Hamilton and the men 
who favored his financial measures believed in a strong 
central government ; in fact some of Hamilton's opponents 
charged him with trying to destroy the state legislatures and 
give Congress control of local as well as national affairs. 
Some even said that Hamilton's policy would lead to kingly 
government. Out of this difference of views there arose two 
political parties, one led by Hamilton, the other by Jefferson. 
The followers of Hamilton called themselves " Federalists," 
the old name of the friends of the Constitution ; Jefferson 
called the members of his party " Republicans " as a sign 
of protest against what he regarded as the monarchical 
ideas of Hamilton. Later the Republicans became known 
as Democrats. (Sec. 259.) 



THE FEDERALISTS IN POWER 195 

The Federalists favored a liberal or " loose " construction 
of the Constitution ; they wanted the central government 
to be made strong and to assume many powers which were 
not named in the Constitution, but were " implied," they 
said, in that document. 

The Republicans, on the other hand, favored a " strict " 
construction of the Constitution. They wanted the states 
to retain great power and feared the growth of a strong 
national government. Congress, they said, should have 
only those powers which were expressly enumerated in the 
Constitution. 

The contest between " loose construction " and " strict 
construction," between " implied powers " and " enumerated 
powers," between " Federal supremacy " and " State 
"Rights " continued for many years in our history. 

208. The Whisky Rebellion. — Hamilton's tax on dis- 
tilled spirits (Sec. 206) met with serious opposition in the 
West, where in nearly every household the making of whisky 
was an important industry. The farmers of western Penn- 
sylvania found it very expensive to carry their wheat to 
market over the mountain roads, so they made whisky 
out of it and took that product to market, at much less 
expense in proportion to its value. They resented this tax 
and refused to pay it, driving out some of the United States 
officers and indulging m serious riots. Hamilton was anx- 
ious to show the power of the new government and in- 
duced Washington to send 15,000 militia to put down the 
" rebellion." Order was quickly restored and the country 
learned that a real government, capable of enforcing its laws, 
had been established. 

209. Washington Remains Neutral in the French War. — 
Washington, who was unanimously reelected President, 



196 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

had just begun his second term when news came that France 
was at war. The revolutionary government in that country, 
having set up a repubhc, and beheaded the king (January, 
1793), soon found itself at war with several European coun- 
tries, including England. This war was of great importance 
to the United States, for our treaty of alliance with France 
was still in force, and the new government of that country 
sent its minister. Genet, to America to secure aid. But 
Washington and his advisers wanted to keep the country 
out of the European war, so on April 22, 1793, the President 
issued a proclamation declaring that the United States was 
at peace with both France and England, and warning all 
citizens to avoid aiding either side in the conflict. 

210. Our Trouble with England. — The war in Europe 
brought us into difficulties with England as well as with 
France, and besides, there were some old difficulties with 
England that had not been settled. 

(a) England still held several posts in American territory 
in the Northwest, which she refused to give up until certain 
debts due to her merchants and to the Loyalists from Revo- 
lutionary times were paid. There was also a dispute about 
the northeast boundary between Maine and Canada. 

(b) By separating from England, America had lost the 
right to trade with the English colonies in the West Indies, 
and, although a good deal of illegal trading was done with 
these colonies, she was anxious to secure the legal right to 
trade there. 

(c) England's control of the sea enabled her to deal in a 
high-handed manner with the shipping of other nations. She 
seized cargoes of food carried in American ships bound for 
France or French colonies. The United States protested that 
food was not "contraband " and so not subject to seizure. 



THE FEDERALISTS IN POWER 197 

{d) England was badly in need of sailors, and her captains 
made a practice of impressing into British service English 
sailors who might be found on American ships. But they 
did not stop at that ; they took men who had been naturalized 
as American citizens. " Once an Englishman, always an 
Englishman," they said. Worst of all, they took away 
sailors who were American citizens by right of birth. 

211. The Trouble Is Partially Settled (1794). — These 
matters irritated American public opinion, and many persons 
in this country, especially the friends of France, were ready 
for war with England. But Washington greatly desired 
peace, and sent John Jay to London to settle the difficulties, 
if possible, by a treaty. The treaty fell far short of American 
demands, and it was with great difficulty that Washington 
succeeded in getting it ratified by the Senate. A great out- 
cry was raised against Jay, who was burned in effigy in many 
cities. Hamilton was stoned in New York when he at- 
tempted to make an open-air address in favor of the treaty. 
Even Washington was abused in speeches and in the press. 
But after a time the country came to the conclusion that, 
unsatisfactory as it was, the treaty was better than war. 
By the terms of this treaty Northwest posts were to be 
evacuated by 1796; American shipowners were to be 
compensated for the seizure of their vessels and cargoes ; 
a commission was to be appointed to settle the disputed 
boundary between Maine and Canada. On its part, the 
United States promised to see that the Loyalist debts were 
paid. Nothing was said about the impressment of American 
seamen ; that was left to become a much greater cause of 
irritation in the future. 

212. Adams Is Elected President (1796). — Washington 
declined to be a candidate for the presidency for a third 



198 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 







John Adams 



term ; he was anxious to retire to private life because he 
wished to escape the cares of the office and the abuse to 
which he had been subjected by pohtical 
opponents. The FederaHsts nominated 
John Adams as their candidate, and he 
was chosen by a bare majority of the 
electoral vote. Thomas Jefferson, the 
Republican candidate, received the next 
highest vote and thus became Vice- 
President, according to the constitu- 
tional provision which then governed 
presidential elections. 

213. Washington's Retirement and 
" Farewell Address." — As Washington's 
second term drew to a close he prepared for publication a 
farewell address to the American people, a noble paper in 
which he exhorted his fellow citizens to be loyal to the 
Union and to strive to live at peace with one another. 
One of its most striking passages is the one in which he 
warned the American people against entering into en- 
tangling alliances with European countries. He relm- 
quished the cares of office with a feeling of relief and retired 
to his estate at Mount Vernon to take up the duties of a 
Virginia farmer. 

214. Trouble with France. — One of the first matters that 
President Adams had to deal with was our relations with 
France. The French government did not take kindly to 
Jay's treaty ; they wanted not peace but war between the 
United States and Great Britain, and they felt that we were 
not living up to the spirit of the alliance of 1778. They 
showed their displeasure by seizing our ships and cargoes as 
the English had done. In the closing months of Washing- 



THE FEDERALISTS IN POWER 



199 




John Marshall 



ton's administration, they refused to receive the American 
minister. When Adams sent Charles Pinckney, John Mar- 
shall, and Elbridge Gerry to treat with them, the French not 
only demanded a bribe of a quarter million dollars before 
the business could be taken up, 
but they also treated the Ameri- 
can envoys with contempt. 

The President made known 
the fact that his mission to 
France had failed, and urged 
preparations for national de- 
fense. " Millions for defense, 
but not a cent for tribute," a 
phrase used by Pinckney, be- 
came the watchword of the 
American people. The friends 
of France were silenced and preparations were made for 
war. The army was reorganized and Washington was 
placed in command. Vessels of war were built and out- 
fitted and a Navy Department was created with Benjamin 
Stoddert of Maryland as first Secretary of the Navy. 
Though war was not formally declared, a number of sea 
fights took place in 1799 and the early months of the next 
year. Hamilton and other Federalist leaders wanted to 
drive the country into war, but President Adams stood firm 
for peace, and against the will of his Cabinet sent com- 
missioners to France. 

After threatening war for two years, France found it had 
nothing to gain by fighting America; in 1800 Napoleon 
Bonaparte, who had come into power, willingly made peace. 
The French discontinued their attacks on American com- 
merce and the treaty of alliance between France and the 



200 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

United States was formally set aside. In after years Adams 
regarded the maintenance of peace as the most important 
act of his Hfe and proposed as his own epitaph " Here lies 
John Adams, who took upon himself the responsibility for 
the peace with France, 1800." 

215. The Alien and Sedition Laws. — During the early 
days of our national history, newspaper discussion of public 
men and affairs was conducted on a low plane. Unmeasured 
vilification of the editor's political opponents was looked 
for by the readers of each partisan journal. Adams and his 
administration received a large share of abuse at the hands 
of Republican editors, many of whom were foreigners, 
either Frenchmen or friends of France. The Federalists 
decided to put an end to the abuse of the administration by 
enacting four laws in the summer of 1798. 

(a) The time of residence necessary for naturalization 

was made fourteen years instead of five. This law 
was repealed in 1802 and the five-year period re- 
stored. 

(b) The second law gave the President power to order out 

of the country without trial, in time of peace, any 
alien whose presence he regarded as dangerous to the 
country. If the order were disobeyed, the President 
might imprison the disobedient alien for three years. 
(President Adams made no use of the power con- 
ferred on him by this act, but many Frenchmen, 
fearing action on his part, left the country.) 

(c) The third act gave the President power to imprison 

ahen enemies in time of war, or to banish them 
from the country. This was not an unreasonable 
arrangement and is still in force. 



THE FEDERALISTS IN POWER 20I 

{d) The fourth, or Sedition Law, made it an offense to 
be punished by fine and imprisonment for citizens 
to " combine " against the legal measures of the 
government or to make any " false, scandalous, or 
malicious writing against the government " or its 
high officials. 

A number of prominent persons were convicted under the 
Sedition Act ; some for very trivial reasons according to 
present-day notions. The Republicans thought that such 
offenses could be dealt with by state laws, and they de- 
nounced the act as an invasion of the right of free speech. 
The Alien and Sedition Laws proved very unpopular and 
had much to do with the defeat of the Federalists at the 
next presidential election. 

216. Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions (1798). — The 
legislatures of Virginia and Kentucky passed resolutions de- 
claring that the states had a right to interfere when Congress 
passed laws that were clearly unconstitutional, as was the 
case, they said, with the Alien and Sedition Acts. The 
other states were asked to join in a demand for the repeal of 
the obnoxious laws, but they refused, and nothing came of 
the protest at the time. In the following year, Kentucky 
passed a second set of resolutions in which the right of the 
states to undo the unconstitutional acts of Congress was 
reasserted, and the term " nullification " was used to de- 
scribe this right of the states. 

Kentucky and Virginia contented themselves with a 
declaration of their right to " nullify," or set aside, acts of 
Congress. Later, as we shall see, other states not only as- 
serted the right of nullification, but attempted to practice 
nullification. (Sec. 267.) 



202 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

217. Death of Washington. — While the political bicker- 
ings of Federalists and Republicans were at their height, 
news came of the death of Washington at Mount Vernon 
on December 14, 1799, in the sixty-eighth year of his age. 

During the two and one half years since his retirement 
from the presidency, his political opponents had time to 
forget their animosities, and the whole country united to 
mourn the loss of its great leader in war and peace. 

218. The Fall of the Federalists. — The Federalist Party, 
to which Adams belonged, had grown unpopular, especially 
on account of the Sedition Act, and when the election of 
1800 came around, Adams failed of reelection. Although 
the Federalists were defeated in the congressional elections, 
they provided a large number of new offices for themselves 
and their friends during the few months when they controlled 
the government after the elections. Places were made for 
twenty-four new United States judges besides United States 
marshals and other officers, and Adams proceeded to fill 
these places with men from his own party. It was said later 
that the Federalists had made the judiciary " a hospital for 
decayed politicians." It is said that Adams spent his time 
up to midnight on the last night of his presidency signing 
judicial appointments. The men whom he named became 
known as " the midnight judges." 

219. Election of Jefferson. — In the election of 1800 the 
successful Republican candidates for president and vice- 
president, Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr, received an 
equal number of votes in the electoral college. The choice 
between these two had to be made by the House of Rep- 
resentatives, and the Federalists, who were still in control 
of that House, thought for a time of making Burr President, 
though Jefferson was the people's choice for that office. The 



THE FEDERALISTS IN POWER 



203 



difficulty over this election led to the twelfth amendment 
to the Constitution, which provided that electors use sepa- 
rate ballots in voting for president and vice-president. 



alien 

assumption 

bickerings 

compromise 

constitutionality 



Vocabulary 

contraband illegal 

currency 

distilled 

effigy 

epitaph 



mipressment 
malicious 
naturalized 
nullification 



obnoxious 
partisan 
revenue 
vilification 



Questions 

I. How many members are there to-day in the President's Cabinet? 
2. How many judges are there to-day in the Supreme Court ? Are there 
any from your state? 3. Was Hamilton's financial policy a good one? 
Why ? 4. What compromise ended the controversy over the national 
debt ? 5. Name the political parties of the time and state two points 
of difference between them. 6. How did the United States government 
show its power in the Whisky Rebellion ? 7. What was Washington's 
policy toward the warring countries in Europe ? 8. How was trouble with 
England avoided at this time ? 9. Was it a final solution of the difficulty ? 

10. What was the source of our warlike attitude toward France ? 

11. How was this trouble avoided ? 12. Why did the Alien and Sedition 
Laws help to defeat the Federalists in 1800? 13. Do you admire the 
way in which the Federalists accepted defeat ? 14. What was the pur- 
pose of the Twelfth Amendment to the Constitution ? 



CHAPTER XIV 



THE JEFFERSONIAN DEMOCRACY 
The Administrations of Jefferson and Madison 

220. Jefferson Becomes President. — Few of Washing- 
ton's successors have exercised so great an influence over the 
country as Thomas Jefferson, who occupied the presidential 

office from 1801 to 1809. The people 
had great faith in him as the friend 
of democratic government, and Con- 
gress, during his two terms in the 
presidency, readily accepted his 
leadership. Even after he retired 
from office his advice was often 
sought on important questions. 

Jefferson was well known through- 
out the country, even before his elec- 
tion to the presidency. He was the 
author of the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence and had been governor of 
Virginia during the trying times of the Revolutionary War. 
Later he spent five years in France as American min- 
ister, returning home to take a place in Washington's Cab- 
inet as Secretary of State. He was a man of simple tastes, 
and his inauguration was marked by a simplicity lacking 
in those of his predecessors. With a few of his friends he 

204 




THE JEFFERSONIAN DEMOCRACY 205 

walked from his boarding house to the Capitol and took the 
oath of office as President of the United States. Jefferson's 
inauguration was the first to take place in the new city of 
Washington, to which the government had been transferred 
in 1800. 

221. Jefferson's Plans. — The new President did not 
want the central government to extend its powers ; he 
thought it should confine its attention chiefly to the regu- 
lation of commerce and foreign relations and leave other 
matters to the states. Such a government would require 
few officials and little money for its maintenance. Jefferson 
was a man of peace, and he hoped that America would re- 
main free from the conflicts of Europe. He wished to spend 
as little money as possible on the army and navy, not only 
because he hated war, but because he was anxious to pay 
off the national debt. 

222. War with Tripoli. — But Jefferson soon found that 
he could not entirely dispense with a navv. The rulers of 
Tripoli, Algiers, and the other Mohammedan countries of 
North Africa had long been levying tribute on the commerce 
of Christian nations, and we, in common with Europeans, 
paid them large sums of money. In 1801 Tripoli became 
dissatisfied with the amount it was getting from America 
and declared war on us. Warships were sent to the Med- 
iterranean each summer for several years, but it was not 
until 1805 that Tripoli agreed to give up her demands for 
tribute. The presence of American war vessels in the Med- 
iterranean had a salutary influence on other North African 
states and restrained them from interfering with American 
commerce. Though not of great importance, the war 
proved very costly and required a considerable increase 
in import duties, much to Jefferson's regret. A beneficial 



2o6 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

result of the war was that the officers and men of the navy 
received an excellent training which was of value to them 
in the war with England a few years later. 

223. The Purchase of Louisiana (1803). — Early in 
Jefferson's term it became known that Napoleon, who was 
then ruler of France, had secured Louisiana from Spain 
and was preparing to take possession of his new lands. 
This was alarming news for Americans who were interested 
in keeping the Mississippi open to western commerce. 
" Every eye in the United States," said Jefferson, "is now 
fixed on this affair of Louisiana." After much difficult 
bargaining, Spain, in 1795, had granted to the Westerners 
the right of unloading their river cargoes at New Orleans 
and reloading on ocean-going vessels. This right had be- 
come very valuable, and the people of the West were willing 
to fight to maintain it. Though Jefferson was a peace- 
loving man, he, too, would fight for an open river, and dis- 
liked having New Orleans fall into the strong hands of 
Napoleon. 

Jefferson decided to settle the question, if possible, by 
peaceful means, and directed Livingston, the American 
minister at Paris, to ascertain on what terms Napoleon 
would cede the island of New Orleans to the United States. 
To Livingston's great surprise, Napoleon, who was begin- 
ning a great war in Europe for which he needed money, 
was willing to sell not only New Orleans, but the whole of 
Louisiana. A treaty was signed at Paris, May 2, 1803, 
which secured for Americans the peaceful navigation of the 
Mississippi and nearly doubled the territory of the United 
States, at a cost of only $15,000,000. 

224. Exploration of the Louisiana Territory. — Jeffer- 
son had long been interested in the great country west of 



THE JEFFERSONIAN DEMOCRACY 



207 







Transfer of Louisiana 



208 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 



the Mississippi, and soon after he became President he se- 
cured from Congress an appropriation for an expedition 
among the Indian tribes of the Missouri River. He chose 
as the leaders of this expedition his private secretary, Meri- 
wether Lewis, and WilHam Clark, a brother of George Rogers 
Clark. Before the expedition could set out, the Louisiana 




Regions Explored by Lewis and Clark and by Zebulon Pike 



Purchase had been made and the territory which it was to 
traverse had fallen into American hands. 

Lewis and Clark, with about forty men, left St. Louis in 
May, 1804, and proceeded up the Missouri. They passed 
the winter among the Mandan Indians, near the present 
site of Bismarck, North Dakota, and in the following sum- 
mer, guided by an Indian woman, Sacajawea, pushed west- 
ward across the Rocky Mountains and descended the 
Columbia River to its mouth. This mighty stream had 



THE JEFFERSONIAN DEMOCRACY 



209 



been discovered by Captain Robert Gray of Boston, who 
entered it in 1792 in his ship Columbia, from which the 
river got its name. Captain Gray's discovery and the 
explorations of Lewis and Clark laid the foundation for the 
American claim to the Oregon country. After spending 
the winter of 1 805-1 806 on the Oregon coast, the explorers 
returned to the United States, reaching St. Louis in Sep- 
tember. 

While Lewis and Clark were in the far West, another 
explorer, Lieutenant Zebulon Pike, had in 1805 explored 
the Mississippi from St. Louis nearly to its source. The 
next year he explored the upper waters of the Arkansas and 
discovered the mountain now known as Pike's Peak. 

225. Invention of the Steamboat. — - The successful ap- 
plication of steam power to water transportation at this 
time aided greatly in the develop- 
ment of the West in later years. 
A number of men experimented 
with steam-propelled boats to- 
wards the end of the eighteenth 
century and several of them 
succeeded in getting their craft 
to go by steam power. One of 
the earliest among them was 
John Fitch, who in the summer 
of 1790 made a number of trips 
on the Delaware with his steam- 
boat. His venture, as well as 
that of other early inventors in 

the same field, proved unprofitable, and it was not until 
1807 that the steamboat became a commercial success. In 
August of that year Robert Fulton, a Pennsylvanian of 




Robert Fulton 



210 HIS TORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

Irish descent, in his boat, the Clermont^ sailed from New 
York to Albany, a distance of one hundred fifty miles, in 
thirty-two hours. From this time steady improvement was 
made in steam navigation, and in 1811 a steamboat was 
seen on the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, an event of great 
importance to the growing West. After the War of 181 2 
steamers were regularly in service on the Great Lakes, and 
in 1 8 19 the Sava7innh, propelled partly by steam-power and 
partly by sails, crossed the Atlantic to England. 

226. The Westward Movement. — In the year 1800 a 
land law was passed which permitted settlers to buy western 
lands in 160-acre lots at two dollars an acre, one fourth of 
the amount to be paid when making the purchase and the 
remainder within four years. Under this arrangement Ohio, 
which was admitted as a state in 1803, and other western 
communities received large numbers of new settlers. From 
1800 to 1 8 10 the population of Ohio rose from 45,000 to 
406,000, while nearly 40,000 persons settled in the southern 
districts of Indiana and Illinois. During the same period 
Kentucky and Tennessee doubled their population. The 
chief products of the western country were wheat, corn, 
hogs, and cattle. Great quantities of flour, bacon, and beef 
were sent down the Ohio and Mississippi; in the one year 
181 1 some twelve hundred flatboats loaded with these prod- 
ucts left the Ohio. At the same time thousands of head 
of cattle and hogs were driven overland to the eastern mar- 
kets. 

The growth of the West showed the need of roads and 
canals, and during Jefferson's presidency a demand arose 
for national aid for these " internal improvements." The 
President and his Secretary of the Treasury, Gallatin, pre- 
pared a plan for a great system of canals and roads ; but 



THE JEFFERSONIAN DEMOCRACY 211 

at this point the growing interference of France and Eng- 
land with American commerce led to an embargo (Sec. 229). 
The nation's revenues were greatly reduced and national 
aid for internal improvements had to be given up for some 
years. 

227. Interference with American Commerce. — As we 
have already seen, one of the reasons that led Napoleon to 
sell Louisiana was the great war which he began in 1803 
against England and other countries. The French fleet 
was not equal to that of the British, so France's foreign 
commerce was greatly hmdered by the war. American 
shippers now secured much of the former French trade 
and for a few years the war made American commerce ex- 
tremely profitable, our exports having doubled from 1803 
to 1805. But this prosperity did not last. In October, 
1805, the French navy met a crushmg defeat near Cape 
Trafalgar at the hands of the British, while a few weeks later 
Napoleon himself gained a decisive victory over the com- 
bined armies of Austria and Russia at the battle of Auster- 
litz. England was now master of the sea and Napoleon 
was master of the European continent, but as neither could 
strike a vital blow at the other, each tried all the harder 
to mjure the other's commerce. As a result neutral trade 
suffered greatly. American ships sailing for British ports 
were liable to be seized by the French, and if they sailed 
for the ports of France or her allies, they were liable to 
seizure by the British. Both France and England, in inter- 
fering with neutral trade, went far beyond the limits of in- 
ternational law ; both robbed our commerce and arrogantly 
refused to give us any satisfaction. 

228. Increasing Trouble with England. — The British 
navy stationed ships outside New York harbor and other 



212 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

harbors on the Atlantic coast to examine American vessels 
as they left port. It was easier to control American com- 
merce by watching a few American ports than by maintain- 
ing an effective blockade of the many European ports. 
Besides interfering with the American trade, the British 
seized many seamen from American vessels. The high wages 
paid on American ships had led to the desertion of many 
English seamen, about 2500 a year at this time. To impress 
all English sailors possible the British redoubled their 
efforts in searching American vessels. 

The zeal of the British in this field reached a climax in 
June, 1807, when the British warship Leopard fired on the 
American frigate Chesapeake^ killed or wounded twenty-one 
men, and carried off others. The insult to the American 
flag raised the war fever in the country to a dangerous 
height. 

229. The Embargo Act (1807). — Jeff'erson, the friend 
of peace, was not the man to use force to secure respect for 
American rights. Besides, he thought he could settle the 
matter by refusing to let England and France have American 
food products and other supplies, such as cotton. Congress 
agreed with him and in December, 1807, passed the Embargo 
Act, forbidding American vessels to sail for foreign ports. 
But the act failed of its purpose. The working people in 
England, it is true, suffered greatly because they could not 
buy American foodstuffs, but they had no voice in the gov- 
ernment of their country and their complaints were not 
heeded. The embargo injured many persons at home. 
Sailors were thrown out of work ; shipowners were left 
with idle ships rotting at the docks ; and farmers found them- 
selves unable to sell their grain. Their protests became so 
strong that in March, 1809, just at the end of Jefferson's 



THE JEFFERSONIAN DEMOCRACY 



213 



second term, the Embargo Act was repealed and in its place 
was substituted a Non-Intercourse Act which prohibited 
commerce with Great Britain and France until they ceased 
their illegal interference with American ships. American 
shippers were now left free to pick up what trade they could 
with other nations. 

230. Madison Succeeds Jefferson. — As his second term 
drew to a close, Jefferson refused to be a candidate for a 
third term. He decided to follow 
the precedent set by Washington 
by retiring at the end of eight years 
and expressed the hope that in the 
future no President would serve 
more than two terms. 

In the election of 1808 the Re- 
publicans were again successful ; 
their candidate was Jefferson's Sec- 
retary of State, James Madison of 
Virginia, one of the chief authors of 
the Constitution. He, like Jeffer- 
son, was a man of peace, but before the end of his first 
term a young and aggressive group in his party forced him 
into war with Great Britain. 




James Madison 



The War of 181 2 

231. Anti-British Feeling Grows. — In the early days of 
his presidency Madison thought he had secured a settle- 
ment of the dispute with Great Britain. Erskine, the new 
British minister at Washington, met all the President's 
demands; and in April, 1809, Madison issued a proclama- 
tion renewing commercial intercourse with Great Britain. 
Hundreds of American ships, laden with goods for the 



214 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

English markets, at once put to sea ; hut soon word came 
that the British government had repudiated Erskine's 
agreement and the minister was recalled. Heavy losses 
were sustained by the shippers, whose vessels were refused 
entry to British ports. The incident stirred up much anti- 
British feeling in America. 

The Non-Intercourse Act expired in 1810 and American 
commerce was free to seek the markets of Great Britain 
and France, but at the risk of capture by one or another 
of those powers. At the same time an act known as 
Macon's Bill No. 2 was passed. This act provided that if 
either of the offending nations should cease its hostility 
to American commerce, the President might renew the 
non-intercourse policy against the nation which continued 
hostile. Napoleon, when he heard of the Macon Bill, 
promised that on November i, 1810, his decrees against 
neutral commerce would be revoked. Though the Emperor's 
promise was not seriously meant, Madison issued a proclama- 
tion suspending commercial intercourse with Great Britain 
after February 2, 181 1. He had hoped to force the British 
to follow Napoleon's example, but they paid no attention 
to the growing warlike spirit in America and refused to give 
way. 

232. The British Stir Up the Indians in the Northwest. — 
Another source of irritation was found in the Northwest, 
where it was charged that the British were furnishing the 
Indians with guns and ammunition and inciting them to 
deeds of violence. This charge may have been true, but at 
the same time it must be admitted that the Indians had 
good reason to regard the Americans as their enemies. 
The western settlers regretted the treaty made by General 
Wayne with the Indians in 1795 (Sec. 196), which left the 



THE JEFFERSONIAN DEMOCRACY 215 

natives in possession of very valuable lands in Indiana 
Territory. Under the leadership of William Henry Harri- 
son, governor of the territory, the Americans were pushing 
the Indians back by rather high-handed methods. To 
oppose the American advance, two Shawnee Indians, 
Tecumseh and his brother, who is known as "the Prophet," 
undertook to form an Indian confederacy. A fight took 
place November 7, 181 1, at Tippecanoe Creek, in which 
the Indians were defeated by Harrison, who became the 
hero of the West. English arms which were found in a 
neighboring Indian village were accepted as evidence of 
British support of the Indian cause, and western suspicion 
of British intentions increased. 

233- War Is Declared. — The new Congress, which con- 
vened towards the end of 181 1, contained a large number of 
new members, young men who were dissatisfied with the 
peaceful attitude of Madison and who chose as Speaker 
of the House Henry Clay of Kentucky, who was known to be 
in favor of war. 

Madison finally gave way before the demands of the 
" war hawks," and on June i, 1812, sent a message to 
Congress, pointing out the grievances of the United States 
and recommending war. Among the acts of Great Britain 
of which he complained were these : 

(a) The impressment of American seamen. 

(b) The stationing of British cruisers in American waters 

where they interfered with " entering and depart- 
ing commerce." 

(c) The unlawful capture of American vessels on the high 

seas. (This was the chief cause of complaint ; had 
it been absent, the other matters would have been 
overlooked.) 



2l6 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

(d) The incitement of Indian hostilities on the north- 
western frontier. 

Congress agreed with the President that the time had 
come to fight, and on June i8 a state of war was declared 
to exist between the United States and Great Britain. Be- 
fore news of the declaration of war reached England, the 
British ministry announced that it would discontinue the 
unlawful capture of American vessels, which was the chief 
object of American complaint. But the news of the British 
change of heart was some weeks in reaching America, and 
it was then too late to stop the war. Had an Atlantic 
cable been in operation, the conflict might have been avoided. 

234. The Country Neither Prepared nor United. — 
When the war broke out, the country was poorly equipped 
for fighting; the army of the United States consisted of 
fewer than 10,000 men, and of these only 6000 were trained 
soldiers. The higher officers of the army at the outset of 
the war were chiefly old men unfit for active duty. On the 
sea we were as poorly equipped as on land, especially when 
it is remembered that we were entering upon a contest 
with the greatest sea power the world had ever known. 
Our navy was made up of twelve vessels capable of sailing 
on the high seas and about two hundred gunboats, which 
could be used for coast defense only. 

Not only was the country unprepared for war, but it was 
also sharply divided as to the wisdom of the war. The 
Federalists in Congress, for the most part, voted against 
the war, and the New England states where the Federalists 
were strong gave little aid in carrying it on. In fact, before 
the conflict was over, there came from New England a threat 
of secession from the Federal Union. 



THE JEFFERSONIAN DEMOCRACY 



217 



235. The Advance on Canada Fails. — An attack on Canada 
offered the most obvious means of striking at British power, 
and plans were made for several invading expeditions. 

{a) General Henry Dearborn was to lead an advance 
by the Lake Champlain route to Montreal, but he failed 
even to cross the Canadian frontier. 

{b) An expedition under General Stephen Van Rensselaer 
crossed the Niagara River, but the leader proved incom- 
petent and met with a decisive defeat at Queenstown, a 
short distance from Niagara Falls. 

(c) Farther to the west, General William Hull entered 
Canada by way of Detroit and besieged the British post 




The Canadian Frontier 



at Maiden. He soon lost courage, retreated to Detroit, 
and on August 15 surrendered that post and his army 
without firing a shot. This disaster gave the British control 
of Michigan Territory. On the same day. Fort Dearborrr, 
on the site of Chicago, fell into the hands of the Indians, 
who massacred the garrison. 



2i8 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

236. Naval Victories. — While the attempts of the land 
forces to invade Canada ended in humiliating failure, the 
navy covered itself with glory by a number of remarkable 
victories. The American frigate Constitution, commanded 
by Captain Isaac Hull, a nephew of General Hull, fell in 
with the British frigate Giierriere on August 19, about 
six hundred miles east of Boston. In less than thirty 
minutes the enemy " was left without a spar standing," 
according to the report of Captain Hull, whose own vessel 
was only slightly damaged. On October 19 the American 
sloop J'Fasp defeated the British brig Frolic after forty- 
three minutes of fighting. A few days later the frigate 

United States captured the frigate Macedonia, and in De- 
cember the Co7istitution earned new fame by the destruction 
of the Java in South American waters. These striking 
victories did very little damage to England's sea-power 
(in fact, before the war was over our navy was driven 
from the sea), but they gave England a wholesome respect 
for American fighting ability. As the English statesman 
Canning afterwards expressed it : " The sacred spell of 
the mvincibility of the British navy was broken." 

237. The Battle of Lake Erie. — It was left for the navy 
also to undo the disastrous results of General Hull's coward- 
ice and to prevent a successful invasion of the United States 
from the north. The British had a small fleet of war vessels 
on Lake Erie and their control of that body of water per- 
mitted them to bring supplies and men to Detroit and 
other western posts which were in their hands. If the 
Americans wanted to regain Detroit and begin a second 
invasion of Canada from the west, they had first to destroy 
the British fleet on Lake Erie. But at the beginning of 
18 1 3 there was not an American vessel of war on the lake, 



THE JEFFERSONIAN DEMOCRACY 



219 



and a young naval officer, Oliver Hazard Perry, was sent 
West to build and buy a fleet which could cope with the 
enemv. He bought several vessels, but the greater part 
of his little fleet was built from timber which his men cut 
in the forest. With immense labor he had the equipment 
for his ships brought overland from Philadelphia, and 
before summer was over was ready to fight. 

The British offered battle off Sandusky on September 10, 
1813; the combatants were about equally matched and 
the fight was bitterly contested. 
In the course of the action 
Perry's flagship was sunk, and 
through a hail of bullets the 
commander made his way in 
a rowboat to another ship. 
What seemed a defeat was soon 
turned into a complete victory, 
which Perry announced in his 
famous dispatch to General 
Harrison : " We have met the 
enemy and they are ours. Two 
ships, two brigs, one schooner, and one sloop." 

The loss of control of Lake Erie compelled the British 
to abandon Detroit, which they burned. General Harrison, 
who was now m command m the West, followed the re- 
treatmg British and defeated them decisivelv on the river 
Thames in Ontario. Among the slain was the Indian 
leader Tecumseh, who had joined the British at the be- 
ginning of the war. The victory at the Thames put an 
end to British control of the Northwest. 

238. The Creek War. — ^The Creek Indians, living in 
what is now Alabama, had been roused against the whites 




Oliver Hazard Perry 



220 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

by Tecumseh early in the war, and after various warlike 
exploits captured Fort Mims and massacred its inhabitants 
August 30, 1 81 3. The Southwest was stirred to action and 
in the following spring the Creeks were crushed at Horse- 
shoe Bend by the Tennessee militia under command of 
General Andrew Jackson. The Indians were compelled to 
cede a vast territory in Georgia and Alabama, which was 
thus thrown open to settlement. In this war Andrew Jack- 
son gained his reputation as a soldier. 

239. The British Plans for 1814. — The war that Eng- 
land was waging in America was a small affair in comparison 
with her mighty struggle against Napoleon ; but in Octo- 
ber, 1 81 3, the great battle of Leipzig shattered Napoleon's 
power and the next spring he was sent into exile. Eng- 
land was now free to give more attention to America, and 
her miUtary leaders decided to send three veteran armies 
across the Atlantic. The first, of eleven thousand men, 
was sent to Canada to invade New York by the old Lake 
Champlain route; the second, of four thousand men, was 
to take Washington and Baltimore, and the third, of ten 
thousand men, was to seize the mouth of the Mississippi. 

The Americans had done little to meet this powerful 
attack. The administration of both army and navy proved 
incompetent, the treasury was nearly empty, and the East 
was furnishing very few volunteers for the army. The New 
England states put many obstacles in the way of raising 
troops and their citizens engaged in a treasonable trade 
with the enemy, furnishing the British army in Canada 
with food. " Two thirds of the army in Canada are at 
this moment eating beef provided by American contrac- 
tors," wrote a British general in the midst of the war. 
Men in Massachusetts were so opposed to the war that 



THE JEFFERSONIAN DEMOCRACY 221 

they talked of a separate peace between their state and 
Great Britain. 

240. British Failure on Lake Champlain. — It was part 
of the British plan, as we have seen, to invade New York 
by way of Lake Champlain, as Burgoyne had done in the 
Revolutionary War. The success of the expedition seemed 
assured, for the Americans had only two thousand men 
to oppose the eleven thousand veterans of the invading 
army. In order to provide his troops regularly with sup- 
plies, the British commander had to control Lake Champlain, 
so he took with him from Canada a fleet which he thought 
sufficient for the purpose. Captain Thomas MacDonough, 
who commanded the small American fleet on Lake Cham- 
plain, ofi'ered battle at Plattsburg, September 11, 1814, and 
handled his guns with such skill that the enemy was totally 
defeated. The British land forces retreated into Canada, 
and New York was saved from invasion. 

241. The Capture of Washington. — The British army 
which was to operate against Washington and Baltimore 
arrived in Chesapeake Bay in August and made a landing 
about forty miles from the national capital. Easily de- 
feating the raw militia who attempted to bar their way, 
the British troops under General Ross entered Washington 
August 24, 1 8 14. The officers of the government and 
many of the residents had fled ; Mrs. Madison, the wife 
of the President, had scarcely time to save the silver and 
other valuable household articles. 

In the preceding year American soldiers, acting without 
orders, had burned the Parliament building at York, now 
Toronto, Ontario. In retaliation for this. General Ross 
burned the Capitol, the President's house, and other build- 
ings, destroying many valuable records. In the one case the 



222 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 



WASHINGTON^ 

Ai^D viciNiry. 



burning was the act of irresponsible private soldiers; in 
the other it was the act of the commanding general, who 
seemed very proud of the destruction he had wrought. 

When his work was done at Washington, Ross rejoined 
the British fleet and undertook the capture of Baltimore; 
but the guns of Fort McHenry, which defended the city, 

beat oflF the fleet, and a land 
attack, in which Ross was 
killed, failed. A few weeks 
later the British forces left 
the Chesapeake to take part 
in the attack on Louisiana. 
It was during the bom- 
bardment of Fort McHenry 
that Francis Scott Key con- 
ceived the idea of writing 
The Star-Spangled Banner. 
He had gone aboard a 
British ship the day before 
the battle to secure the 
release of an American 
prisoner and was detained 
during the bombardment, 
which lasted the entire 
night. His joy at seeing 
the flag of Fort McHenry still flying in the morning inspired 
him to write the poem which has immortahzed his name. 

242. The Battle of New Orleans. — The British forces 
which were to attack Louisiana landed eight miles below 
New Orleans late in December, 1814. The defense of the 
city had been placed in the hands of General Andrew Jack- 
son, who earlier in the year had shown himself a capable 




THE JEFFERSONIAN DEMOCRACY 



223 



leader against the Creek Indians. He had under his com- 
mand about five thousand men, westerners, unused to 
military ways but excellent rifle-shots. With great energy 
Jackson set to work to construct defenses and was well 
prepared to meet the British attack, which was delivered 
January 8, 1815. 

The British leader, General Pakenham, who had but 
few more men than Jackson, sought to carry the American 
position by a frontal attack. 
He had a great contempt 
for the militia and expected 
them to break and run at 
the first onset of British 
regulars. But the western 
riflemen kept their heads 
and poured an effective fire 
into the advancing columns 
of redcoats. Pakenham and 
two other major generals 
were killed and his forces 
were so badly crippled that 
they withdrew from the field. 
The British lost nearly two thousand men, killed and 
wounded, while Jackson's loss was seventy-one. 

The victory at New Orleans not only saved the Lower 
Mississippi from foreign control but also added greatly to the 
importance of the West and made Jackson one of the lead- 
ing men of the country. 

243. The Peace of Ghent (1814). — ^The report of Jack- 
son's great victory had scarcely reached the government 
at Washington when news arrived from Europe that a 
treaty of peace had been signed at Ghent on Christmas 




224 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 



Eve, two weeks before the battle of New Orleans. Nothing 
was said in the treaty about the matters which had brought 
on the conflict, but, as the great war with Napoleon had 
come to an end, the British had no further cause to interfere 
with American commerce. 

244. The Hartford Convention and the End of the 
Federalists. — As we have seen, many people in New 
England were from the beginning opposed to what they 
called " Mr. Madison's War." They refused to lend 
money to the government to aid in financing the war and 
three of the New England states refused to enlist their 
mihtia in the United States service even when New England 
was threatened with invasion. As the war continued, there 
was much talk of separating New England from the Union, 
and in December, 1814, there assembled in Hartford a 
convention made up of men from the New England states 
whose purpose was evidently to prepare the way for the 
dissolution of the Union. The convention adjourned in 

the middle of January and sent a 
committee to Washington to present 
its demands to Congress. But the 
news of Jackson's victory and the 
peace of Ghent destroyed whatever 
hopes of breaking up the Union New 
England may have entertained. 

The Federalist Party, which had 
opposed the war and organized the 
Hartford Convention, rapidly lost 
its political influence and soon 
ceased to exist. In 1816, when 
James Monroe of Virginia was elected to succeed Madison, 
the Federalists polled only thirty-five electoral votes; and. 




James Monroe 



THE JEFFERSONIAN DEMOCRACY 225 

four years later, when Monroe was reelected, they did not 
have a single electoral vote. 

245. Measures of Defense. — The Jeffersonian notion 
that the central government should be kept weak lost 
ground as a result of the war. The necessity of a fair- 
sized military establishment was seen, and at the end of 
the war a permanent army of ten thousand men was pro- 
vided for, while ^4,000,000 was voted to strengthen the 
navy. 

246. The Tariff of 1816. — The war had cut off imports 
of many kinds of manufactured goods and thus had stimu- 
lated home industries. The number of persons employed 
in American cotton mills rose from 4000 in 18 10 to 100,000 
in 181 5, and a similar growth was recorded in other lines 
of manufacture. When peace reopened the American 
markets to English goods, many of the new industries were 
threatened with destruction. Congress came to their aid 
with the tariff law of 18 16, which greatly increased the 
import duties on cotton and woolen goods, iron, leather 
goods, and other manufactured articles. 

Another financial measure of the time was the establish- 
ment of the second United States Bank in 1816. The 
charter of the first United States Bank had expired in 
181 1 and during the war the need of such an institution 
had been sharply felt. 

247. Growth of National Feeling. — The War of 181 2 has 
been called the second war for independence ; for, though we 
were an independent nation, neither England nor France 
had treated us with respect. The war gave us a place in 
the family of nations and at the same time increased our 
own self-respect. An English traveler who visited the 
country soon after the war found the people talking of 

Q 



226 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 



the " inferiority of British sailors and 
soldiers to the true-blooded Yankees." 

The years following the war were marked 
by much mterest in literary matters. 
Many serious reviews and popular maga- 
zines were established ; of these The North 
American Review, begun m 1815, is the 
most notable survivor. It was in the 
North American for September, 18 17, that 
Bryant's Thanatopsis first appeared. In 

Washington Irving 1819 Washington Irving published his 
Sketch Book, and two years later James 

Fenimore Cooper brought out The Spy. These books 

are notable as the first American books to be read widely 

outside of our own country. 




allies 

anti-slavery 
arrogant 
combatants 



Vocabulary 

frigate 
humiliating 
invincible 
non-intercourse 



retaliation 
tribute 



Questions 

I. What do you know of Jefferson before he became President? 
2. State briefly Jefferson's policy as President. 3. Locate Tripoli and 
Algiers. 4. What were the advantages and disadvantages of our trouble 
with these countries? 5. Why was the possession of New Orleans so 
important to the United States ? 6. Has the Louisiana Purchase proved 
a wise one ? 7. Where is the Columbia River ? Trace the route of 
Lewis and Clnrk. 8. How did the invention of the steamboat help to 
develop the states west of the Allegheny ? 9. Why was the Embargo 
Act a failure ? 10. Give briefly the various causes for the War of 1812. 
II. Of what value were the American naval victories? 12. In what 
ways was the United States unprepared for war ? 13. How did Andrew 



'IHE JEFFERSON IAN DEMOCRACY 227 

Jackson gain notice for the first time ? 14. What were England's three 
points of attack ? Why were they selected ? Was the United States 
prepared to meet this attack? 15. Nlcmorae The Star-Spangled Banner. 
16. Make a list of the names of people or places made famous by this 
war. 17. Give two noteworthy examples of the lack of rapid trans- 
Atlantic news service. 18. Give a brief history of the Federalist 
Party up to its death. 19. Give all the miportant results of the 
War of 1812. 



CHAPTER XV 
THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE WEST 

James Monroe, President 1817-1825 

248. Emigration Westward. — During the war the coun- 
try became greatly interested in the West, which was the 
scene of much fighting; at the same time the victories of 
Harrison and Jackson over the Indians opened up to white 
settlement a large fertile area which in the years following 
the war attracted thousands of immigrants from the East 
and from the Old World. Immigration from Europe, which 
had averaged four or five thousand persons annually in the 
earlier years of the republic, increased very much after the 
War of 1812. In 1817 there landed in America about 
twenty-two thousand immigrants of whom one fifth were 
Germans and three fifths Irish. In the following years 
immigrants came in even greater numbers and many of them, 
as well as many Americans dweUing in the older states, moved 
west to establish homes in the newer regions of the country. 
How rapidly the West was growing may be seen in the case 
of Indiana, which from only 24,000 inhabitants in 1810 
had grown to 147,000 in 1820. 

In the South there was a very important westward move- 
ment of population attracted by the fertile " cotton belt," 
running from South Carolina through Georgia, Alabama, 
and Mississippi. This westward migration greatly ex- 

228 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE WEST 



229 



tended and strengthened slavery, for the Southwest soon 
outstripped the old South in the production of cotton. 

249. The Cumberland Road. — The westward move- 
ment showed the importance of good roads, and a great deal 
of money was spent by the states in constructing highways. 
The national government also exhibited an interest in road- 
building in the West and in 181 1 began the construction of 




Cumberland Road 



a road from Cumberland, Maryland, to Wheeling, on the 
Ohio, following in part the route of General Braddock's old 
military road. After the war new appropriations were made 
for the Cumberland or National Road, which was gradually 
pushed westward through Columbus, Indianapolis, and 
other towns to Vandalia, Illinois. In all. Congress voted 
nearly seven million dollars for the construction of the Cum- 
berland Road, which continued to be the great highway of 



2^0 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 



westward migration until the steam railroad provided a 
cheaper and faster means of travel. 

250. New States Admitted. — In 181 2, a few months 
before the outbreak of the war, Louisiana was admitted to 
the Union, — the first new state in ten years. The rapid 
growth of the country after the war is seen in the admission 
of six states : Indiana, in 1816; Mississippi, 1817; Illinois, 
1818; Alabama, 1819; Maine, 1820; and Missouri, 1821. 

251. The Missouri Compromise (1820). — The applica- 
tion of the people of Missouri for admission into the Union 

brought the slavery 
the 



VmcoH ( — 7 




MISSOURI 

COMPROMISE 

OF 1820 







question to 
front as a grave 
political issue and 
aroused sectional 
jealousies, which 
continued until 
after the Civil War. 
Missouri was settled 
chiefly from the 
South, and its large 
slave-holding ele- 
ment wished to see slavery continued when their community 
should become a state. 

The political leaders in the South also were interested in 
seeing Missouri made a slave state, for with the admission 
of Alabama in 1819 the number of slave states just equaled 
the number of free states, and the admission of Missouri as 
a slave state would give the South control of the United 
States Senate. 

In the North, where slavery had almost ceased to exist, 
there was growing opposition to the system of slavery; the 



THE DEVELOPMKN'l OE THE WEST 23 1 

Northwest Ordinance of 1787 had prohibited slavery north 
of the Ohio, and many felt that a similar prohibition should 
be extended to the new lands beyond the Mississippi. So 
when Missouri, in 1819, asked for admission to the Union, 
the House of Representatives, controlled by Northerners, 
demanded that slavery be abolished in the proposed state; 
but in the Senate Southern influence was strong enough to 
reject the demand and the matter was postponed for an- 
other year. The debate in Congress was brief, but the whole 
slavery question was opened up for discussion and much 
bitterness was displayed in the speeches of congressmen. 
Many earnest men saw that the country was entermg upon 
a great conflict. 

The next year, 1820, the Missouri question was again 
before Congress, but now Maine was also applying for ad- 
mission as a new state and an opportunity for a bargain was 
presented. By the terms of the agreement then made, which 
is known as the Missouri Compromise, Maine came in as a 
free state (1820) and Missouri as a slave state (1821); 
slavery was to be prohibited in the remainder of the Loui- 
siana Purchase north of the southern boundary of Missouri 
(latitude 36° 30'). 

The danger of disunion was averted for the time and the 
greater part of the Louisiana Purchase was kept free from 
slavery. 

252. The Northern Boundary; Joint Occupation of Ore- 
gon. — In 1 818 the United States and Great Britain came 
to an agreement with regard to the northern boundary of 
the Louisiana Purchase. When American independence 
was recognized in 1783, the geography of the western coun- 
try was little known and the boundary between American 
and British possessions in the Northwest was drawn from 



232 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 



the Lake of the Woods "due west" to the Mississippi; 
but later it was found that the great river rises some dis- 
tance to the south of that lake and it was seen that a new 
boundary would have to be drawn. Moreover, the northern 
boundary of the Louisiana Province had not been defined at 

the time of the pur- 
chase, and still re- 
mained to be fixed. 
The agreement of 
1818 took care of 
both these difficul- 
ties by fixing upon 
the 49th parallel of 
latitude as the 
boundary between 
the United States 
and the British pos- 
sessions from the 
Lake of the Woods 
to the Rocky Moun- 
tains. 

Beyond the Rock- 
ies lay the Oregon 
Country, which was 
claimed by both the 
United States and 
Great Britain, and as no division of the territory could be 
agreed upon, it was decided that the two countries should 
hold Oregon jointly for a period of ten years. 

253. The Acquisition of Florida. — While the question 
of the northern boundary was being settled, the United 
States was trying to secure Florida from Spain. The people 




Oregon Country 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE WEST 233 

of Georgia and Alabama for years had been anxious to have 
the lands lying between them and the Gulf of Mexico under 
American control; besides, Florida had become a place of 
refuge for pirates, runaway negroes, and hostile Seminole 
Indians, who were in the habit of making raids on Ameri- 
can frontier settlements. In 181 8 General Andrew Jackson 
was put in command of a military force to punish the Semi- 
noles ; he followed the Indians into the Spanish territory, 
took two Spanish forts, and in a short time had possession 
of practically the entire province. Spain protested vigor- 
ously agamst the invasion of her territory and demanded 
the punishment of Jackson, but John Quincy Adams, Mon- 
roe's Secretary of State, replied that Spain ought either to 
preserve order in Florida or hand it over to the United States. 
All the Spanish colonies in America were in revolt at this 
time, and the Spanislf government was not in a position to 
suppress the pirates and lawless Indians of Florida ; it de- 
cided, therefore, in 18 19, to cede the province to the United 
States on condition that our government pay certain claims 
of American citizens against Spain, which were not to ex- 
ceed ^5,000,000. The formal transfer of Florida was made 
in 1 82 1, and Andrew Jackson became its first American 
governor. 

254. The Monroe Doctrine. — By 1822 the Spanish 
colonies on the mainland in both North and South America 
had succeeded in throwing off the authority of Spain and 
had set up republican governments of their own. Spain 
was naturally unwilling to lose her American possessions, 
and asked certain European countries to aid her. The 
rulers of these nations were opposed to the extension of 
republican forms of government, whether in Europe or in 
America. The United States, on the other hand, was glad 



234 HISTORY OF THE UNFrED STATES 

to recognize the independence of the new repubHcs and did 
not wish to see its southern neighbors again ruled by a 
monarchy. Moreover, there was danger that if the strong 
nations of Europe helped Spain to reconquer her former 
American lands they would take portions of Mexico and 
South America as payment for their services. At the same 
time Russia, who already possessed Alaska, was pushing 
farther down the Pacific coast and threatening American 
claims in Oregon. The United States would feel very un- 
comfortable with several of the great European powers as 
near neighbors. 

President Monroe and Secretary Adams decided to pro- 
test against this double danger of European interference 
in South America and Russian aggression on the Pacific. 
England also was interested in maintaining the independence 
of the Spanish-American republics, for*their trade, which was 
now open to her merchants, would be closed if Spain regained 
power over them. Canning, the British foreign minister, 
suggested that England and the United States together 
protest against European interference in the southern re- 
publics ; but Secretary Adams insisted that the United 
States should " not come in as a cock-boat in the wake of 
the British man-of-war." Monroe, therefore, put aside 
the suggestion of joint action with England and determined 
upon a protest by the United States alone. This protest, 
which has become famous as the Monroe Doctrine, was 
contained in President Monroe's annual message to Con- 
gress in December, 1823, and consists of these declarations 
of American policy : 

(i) We shall not meddle in European affairs. 

(2) The American continents " are henceforth not to be 
considered as subjects for future colonization by any Euro- 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE WEST 235 

pean powers." This had special reference to Russia and 
Oregon. The next year Russia withdrew her claims to 
American territory south of 54° 40' north latitude. 

(3) We shall consider any attempt on the part of the 
great powers of continental Europe " to extend their sys- 
tem to any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our 
peace and safety." We shall look upon any interference 
with the new republics to the south of us " for the purpose 
of oppressing them or controlling in any other manner their 
destiny, by any European power, ... as a manifestation 
of an unfriendly disposition toward the United States." 

255. The Erie Canal. — While the national government 
was occupied with the settlement of the Northwest bound- 
ary, the acquisition of Florida, and the Monroe Doctrine, 
the people of New York were engaged in a work which was 
destined to unite the East and West more closely and to 
increase greatly the wealth of the whole country. In 1817 
they began the building of a great canal over three hundred 
sixty miles in length, connecting the Hudson River near 
Albany with Lake Erie at Buffalo. The people of the west- 
ern part of the state were demanding cheaper means of 
transportation for their crops, and leading men saw that the 
construction of a canal from Lake Erie to the Hudson would 
not only lower the cost of carrying goods to and from the 
West but would make of New York one of the great cities 
of the world. The governor, De Witt Clinton, was es- 
pecially powerful in advocating the proposed waterway, 
which, he said, would "create the greatest inland trade ever 
witnessed." New York, he declared, would " in the course 
of time become the granary of the world, the emporium of 
commerce, the seat of manufactures, the focus of great 
moneyed operations." He predicted that in less than a 



236 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

century Manhattan Island would be filled with a dense 
population and would be one vast city. 

The Erie Canal was opened for traffic throughout its 
length in 1825, and its beneficial eff'ects were felt at once. 
The cost of carrying freight was greatly reduced and the 
produce of the farms of western New York more than 
doubled in price, with the result that population poured into 
the lands along the canal. New York City grew even more 
rapidly than Clinton had predicted, and in a few years 
became the chief city of the country. 

256. The Construction of Railroads. — The success of the 
Erie Canal led to the buildmg of new canals in Pennsylvania, 
Ohio, and other states, but already many persons were tak- 
ing an interest in a means of transportation which was to 
prove superior even to the canals. An Englishman, George 
Stephenson, had completed in 1814 a locomotive which was 
used for hauling coal, and by 1830 steam railroads were in 
use in England for both passengers and freight. Ameri- 
cans were quick to see the advantages of the new means of 
transportation and by 1828 the merchants of Baltimore 
secured a charter for a railroad from their city across the 
mountains to the Ohio River. On July 4 of that year the 
venerable Charles Carroll, signer of the Declaration of In- 
dependence, took part in the ceremony which marked the 
beginning of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. The rail- 
road was opened for traffic in 1830; at first the cars were 
propelled by horse power and sails, but after some months 
steam power was utilized. Other shorter lines had already 
been equipped with steam power, and in a few years rail- 
road building was rapidly extended, nearly three thousand 
miles of rails being in use by 1840. 

The early railroads were of crude construction ; the rails 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE WEST 



237 



were of wood with their upper surface protected by a strip 
of iron. The coaches were made in imitation of the stage 




Passenger Car of 1830, Baltimore and Ohio Railroad 

coaches of the time, but soon a style of carriage was de- 
veloped which was more suited to the new needs. 

257. The Election of 1824. — The growing importance 
of the West was shown in the political field when in 1824 
two of the candidates for the presidency, Andrew Jackson 
of Tennessee and Henry Clay of Kentucky, were western 
men. The other candidates were John Quincy Adams of 
Massachusetts and William Crawford of Georgia. All four 
candidates were Republicans, so the contest was a personal 
one. Jackson received the largest number of electoral 
votes with Adams second and Crawford third, but as no one 
had a majority of the votes cast the House of Representa- 
tives was called upon, as the Constitution directs, to choose 
the President from the three leading candidates. Clay, 
who was Speaker of the House, threw his strength to Adams, 
who was duly elected as the successor of President Monroe. 



238 HISTORY OF THE IINI'IED STATES 

Vocabulary 

average doctrine emporium majority republic 

compromise electoral fertile monarchy utilized 

Questions 

I. Give three reasons for western migration after the War of 1812. 
2. To what great national highway of to-day may the Cumberland Road 
be compared ? Give route of each. 3. Review the history of slavery in 
the United States up to and including the Missouri Compromise. 4. On 
what basis is representation apportioned in the United States Senate ? 
In the House of Representatives ? 5. How did these facts affect the 
slavery question ? 6. What is the importance of the Missouri Com- 
promise ? 7. Why was the possession of Florida desired by the United 
States ? How was it acquired ? 8. Why was there any question as to 
ownership of the Oregon Country ? 9. Explain carefully the circum- 
stances leading up to the Monroe Doctrine. 10. State its provisions. 
1 1. To what extent has the prophecy of De Witt Clinton concerning New 
York come true? 12. In a general way how do freight rates by water 
compare with those by land transportation? 13. Are we making suffi- 
cient use of our waterways — especially the great artery, the Mississippi 
and its tributaries ? 



CHAPTER XVI 



THE JACKSONIAN PERIOD 

The Administrations of John Quincy Adams, Jackson, 
AND Van Buren 

258. " The Will of the People." — The friends of Jack- 
son were very greatly disappointed when the House of Rep- 
resentatives refused to elect their candidate. He had re- 
ceived the highest electoral vote and 
was, therefore, they said, the people's 
choice for the presidency. They 
admitted that the House had a con- 
stitutional right to choose one of the 
other leading candidates; but when 
the will of the people had been ex- 
pressed in Jackson's favor, the House, 
they said, ought to have conformed 
to the popular choice. 

Adams had scarcely begun his term 
in the presidential office in 1825 when 
the Jackson men brought forward 
their leader as a candidate for the 

presidency in the election to be held in 1828. Jackson was 
already extremely popular as a successful Indian fighter and 
the hero of the battle of New Orleans. His cause was now 
taken up by thousands who believed that he was the real 

239 




John Quincy Adams 



240 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 



choice of the people in 1824 and had been wrongfully 
deprived of the presidency by the House of Represen- 
tatives. 

Others supported Jackson's candidacy because they wished 
to destroy the order of succession to the presidency which 
had been established. Jefferson had been succeeded by 
his Secretary of State, Madison. Madison had been suc- 
ceeded by Monroe, his Secretary of State, and Adams in 
turn had been promoted from Secretary of State to Presi- 
dent. To continue in that way was to let the President 
name his successor. 

259. New Political Parties. — In the campaign of 1824 
all the leading candidates had called themselves Republi- 
cans, but now a division appeared in the party ranks. The 
followers of Jackson called themselves Democratic-Repub- 
licans or simply Democrats ; while the friends of Adams and 
Clay united under the name National Republicans, but later 
called themselves Whigs. In general the Whigs favored a 
protective tariff, loose construction of the Constitution, and 
internal improvements, and the Jacksonian Democrats op- 
posed these things. 

260. The Tariff of 1828 Aids Jackson. — The manufac- 
turing interests of New England and other Northern States 
secured in 1828 a high protective tariff. The South, an 
agricultural region, felt none of the benefits of the high 
tariff. The people of this section, having to pay more for 
their manufactured goods, raised a lo/.d protest against the 
act of 1828. Some of them even threatened to dissolve the 
Union if the tariff was not abolished. Jackson, who was a 
cotton-planter, seemed a much better candidate for the 
South to support than Adams, who came from New England, 
the home of protection. 



THE JACKSONIAN PERIOD 



241 




Andrew Jackson 



261. Jackson Becomes President. — In the election of 
1828 Jackson received 178 electoral votes against 83 for 
Adams ; not a single vote west of 
the Alleghenies or south of the 
Potomac was cast for the New Eng- 
land candidate. The will of the 
people had finally triumphed, and 
the frontier soldier became presi- 
dent. His election was greeted 
with an outburst of popular en- 
thusiasm, and great crowds of people 
were present in Washington on 
March 4, 1829, to witness his in- 
auguration. 

262. The Spoils System. — Among those who came to 
see the new President begin his term of office were many 
politicians who hoped Jackson would give them government 
offices. Senator Marcy of New York, a leader of the Jack- 
sonian party, declared that " to the victors belong the spoils 
of office " ; this view was held by many of the new Presi- 
dent's advisers, and Jackson himself believed a frequent 
change of officials desirable. In his first year of office he 
removed two thousand government officials to make way for 
his friends ; in the whole history of the country up to his time 
scarcely two hundred removals had been made. The sweep- 
ing action of Jackson in this matter was followed by his suc- 
cessors, and for fifty years the spoils system became a blot 
on American politics. 

263. The Webster-Hayne Debate (1830). — In 1828, 
when the South protested against the high tariff of that year, 
the Vice-President, John C. Calhoun of South Carolina, took 
part in the discussion as the champion of the Southern view. 



242 



IIISl'ORY OF THE UNITED STATES 



He declared that the tariff was extremely harmful to the 
South and that " protection " was unauthorized by the Con- 
stitution. It was his opinion that not only had the states 
created the Union, but they had retained the authority to 
determine how much power had been given to the central 
government under the Constitution. A state which was 
injured by an unconstitutional tariff had a right to nullify 
or suspend within its borders the act of Congress which im- 
posed the tariff. Calhoun adopted the argument of the 

Virginia and Kentucky resolutions 
of 1798 that the states are to be 
the judges of unconstitutional acts, 
but he went further and sought to 
provide a practical means by which 
unconstitutional acts of Congress 
might be set aside. His views were 
accepted by many persons in the 
South, and in 1830 were put forth 
in the United States Senate by 
Robert Hayne of South Carolina. 

Daniel Webster of Massachusetts 
in two great speeches replied to 
Hayne. He held that the Supreme 
Court, not the individual state, is the judge as to whether or 
not the laws of Congress are constitutional. If men were 
dissatisfied with the Constitution, they had a right to 
change it, but while it remained the law of the land 
it was to be obeyed. He went on to show that nullifi- 
cation in practice would mean open resistance to the 
laws and would lead the country into civil war. In 
closing his argument he hoped that the Union might be 
preserved and declared that the sentiment of every true 




Daniel Webster 



THE JACKSONIAN PERIOD 



243 



American was " Liberty and Union, now and forever, one 
and inseparable." 

264. Jackson's Attitude Toward Nullification. — The 
friends of state rights and nulhfication were anxious to 
secure the assistance of President Jackson, who had been 
known as a state rights man and as opposed to a high tariff. 
But at a Jefferson Day banquet (April 13, 1830), the Presi- 
dent proposed the toast " Our Federal Union ; it must be 
preserved ! " thereby associating himself with the Union 
views of Webster and serving notice on the friends of nulli- 
fication that they could not count on his support. On sev- 
eral occasions in the following months he made it plain that 
he would oppose nullification with force if necessary. On 
the other hand, he believed that the tariff was too high and 
recommended its reduction. In 1832 a new tariff law was 
passed, which failed to remove the burdens of the Southern 
planters, and though it lost 
ground in other parts of 
the South, the nullification 
movement continued to grow 
in strength in South Caro- 
lina. 

265. Jackson Reelected. 
— In the presidential elec- 
tion of 1832 Jackson was a z^*" 
candidate to succeed himself / 
and was opposed by Henry 
Clay of Kentucky. Though 
deserted by Calhoun and 
other Southern leaders, Jack- 
son was reelected by a large majority. Martin Van Buren 
of New York, a shrewd political leader who had been 




John C Calhoun 



244 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

Secretary of State in Jackson's first Cabinet, was chosen 
Vice-President. 

266. The Beginning of National Nominating Conven- 
tions. — The election of 1832 brought into use for the first 
time the national nominating convention. The first conven- 
tion of this kind was held in Baltimore in September, 1831, 
by the Anti-masonic Party. This party had been organized 
in western New York for the purpose of opposing Free- 
masonry. It denounced the Masonic order as a secret po- 
litical society and accused it of having made away with a 
certain William Morgan of Batavia, New York, who had 
published a book designed to expose the secrets of Masonry. 
The Anti-masons named William Wirt of Virginia as their 
candidate for the presidency. A few months later the Na- 
tional Republicans, or Whigs, as they soon came to be called, 
met in Baltimore and nominated Henry Clay. Another 
convention, made up of persons friendly to Clay, met in 
Washington in May, 1832, and adopted a " platform " en- 
dorsing protection and attackmg Jackson's administration. 
The Democrats followed the example of the other parties 
and in a national convention held in Baltimore in May, 1832, 
nominated Jackson for President and Van Buren for Vice- 
President. 

Since 1832 the national convention and the party plat- 
form have secured a recognized place in American politics. 

267. Nullification in South Carolina. — A few weeks 
after the reelection of Jackson, South Carolina adopted an 
Ordinance of Nullification which declared the tariff acts of 
1828 and 1832 not binding on the people of that state and 
announced its intention to secede from the Union if the 
United States attempted to enforce the obnoxious acts. The 
President at once made military and naval preparations to 



THE JACKSONIAN PERIOD 245 

uphold the laws of the United States and, in a proclamation 
to the people of South Carolina, vigorously denounced the 
doctrine of nullification. He made it plain that he was pre- 
pared to force South Carohna to obey — ^ at the point of the 
bayonet, if necessary. 

268. The Tariff Compromise of 1833. — Though Jackson 
was ready to use force against South Carolina, he hoped to 
avoid extreme measures and mterested himself m securing 
a revision of the tariff of which Calhoun and his friends com- 
plained. Through the influence of Clay, the protected in- 
terests of the North agreed to a gradual reduction of the 
tariff during a period often years, so that after 1842 no rate 
should exceed twenty per cent. South Carolina declared 
herself satisfied and in March, 1833, repealed the Ordinance 
of Nullification. Her threat of secession for a time stopped 
the onward march of protection. 

269. Jackson's Attitude Toward the United States Bank. 
— In his first term Jackson had vetoed a bill to recharter 
the Bank of the United States, an institution which he be- 
lieved to be unconstitutional and dangerous to the welfare 
of the country. Through its numerous branches throughout 
the country the Bank was able to exercise a great political 
influence, and many persons besides Jackson had come to 
fear its power. During his second term Jackson con- 
tinued his hostility to the Bank, and on the expiration of 
its charter in 1836, it passed out of existence as a national 
bank. 

270. The Abolition Movement. — During Jackson's 
presidency there arose a widespread discussion of the evils 
of slavery, and a movement for the abolition of the slave 
system attracted a great deal of attention. The leader of 
the movement was William Lloyd Garrison who, in 1831, 



246 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 




WII.I.IAM L1.OYO CARRlSOK AmO I«AAC MNAPP, >»UBU1&ME»IS 



lllltltt. Itttltttllllltll. 

TM e LI gCRATOA 

111" 11 mV.ilHiiMi 
«•! mill 1M|_'UI Miiiii 



began publishing in Boston the Liberator, a paper devoted 
to the freedom of the black race in America. In 1833 he 
organized the American Anti-slavery Society, which within 
ten years had two thousand local branches and a total mem- 
bership of a quarter of a million. Wendell Phillips became 
the great orator of the movement and John Greenleaf 
Whittier its poet. 

A number of persons who were interested in the abolition 
movement undertook to aid slaves in escaping from the South 
by what was known as the " Underground Railway." The 
homes of those engaged in the work were called " stations," 
and " conductors " escorted escaped slaves from one " sta- 
tion " to another until fear of pursuit was over or Canada 
was reached. It is said that from 1830 to i860 several 
thousand slaves escaped from their owners each year by the 
help of the " Underground Railway." 

During these years when the North was growing interested 
in abolition, the South became more attached to slavery, 
the area of cotton culture was extended, and the necessity 
of slave labor was more keenly felt than before. South- 
erners resented the talk of abolition and complained that a 



THE JACKSONIAN PERIOD 



247 



serious slave insurrection in Virginia was due to the spread 
of abolitionist literature. At the same time, negroes were 
treated more harshly, laws were passed to prevent the blacks 
from learning to read and write, negro meetings were for- 
bidden unless white men were present, and other measures 
were taken to prevent the slaves from making plans to 
secure their freedom. 

The attention of Congress was soon called to the growmg 
friction between North and South. The abolitionists sent 
to Congress many petitions asking for action against slav- 
ery ; and in 1836 the House of Representatives, at the re- 
quest of Southern members, refused to listen to the reading 
of these petitions. The right of petition is guaranteed by 
the Constitution, and John Quincy Adams, who was now a 
member of Congress, led in a spirited protest against the 
action of the House. But for eight years his protests were 
unheeded, and it was not until 1844 that the slave interests 
in the House permitted the reading 
of anti-slavery petitions. 1 hey 
had learned by that time that their 
denial of the right of petition was 
making thousands of friends for 
abolition. 

271. Van Buren Chosen Presi- 
dent. — As the time approached /' 
for the election of 1836, Jackson 
compelled the Democratic Party to 
name Martin Van Buren of New 
York as its candidate for the presi- 
dency. The Whigs, as the opposing 
party was now called, were disunited and Van Buren won 
an easy victory. 




Martin Van Buren 



248 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

272. The Panic of 1837. — The new President had 
scarcely begun his term of office when the country was 
plunged into a disastrous financial panic, caused chiefly by 
reckless speculation in western lands and unwise invest- 
ments in railroad and canal building in the West. The 
success of the Erie Canal had led to the building of many 
others, for which millions of dollars were borrowed by the 
state governments as well as by private interests. In like 
manner railroads were built at great cost, into regions which 
could not pay for them for many years to come. The open- 
ing up of these lines of transportation led to a rapid rise in 
the price of western lands, and the hope of quick profits 
brought thousands of investors to the West. Foreigners 
who were anxious to share in the profits from American in- 
vestments sent great sums to be invested in railroads and 
lands. New towns were located in the midst of the western 
wilderness ; building lots and factory sites were sold at 
extravagant prices in " cities " which existed only in the 
imagination of the real estate salesman. The banks pro- 
moted this reckless speculation by issuing " paper money " 
and lending it freely to the speculators. 

In the last year of his presidency Jackson had become 
alarmed over this wild speculation in lands ; he felt that 
many of the banks were carelessly, if not dishonestly, con- 
ducted, and that their " paper money," or notes, had little 
or no real value. In July, 1836, he issued an order known 
as the Specie Circular, directing the Treasury to accept only 
gold or silver (specie) in payment for public lands. 

This demand for specie payments helped to bring the 
period of speculation to an end, and by the time Van Buren 
took up his presidential duties the land " boom " was over. 
In 1837 the sales of government land fell to less than a mil- 



THE JACKSONIAN PERIOD 249 

lion dollars, which was one twenty-fifth of what they had been 
the year before. Sound money was not to be had, and men 
ceased to buy more than the bare necessaries of life. Hundreds 
of banks closed their doors, and it was said that in the sum- 
mer of 1837, nine tenths of the factories in the Eastern states 
shut down. To add to the general distress the wheat crop 
had failed in Maryland, Pennsylvania, and the South At- 
lantic states, and the rise in the price of flour threatened 
thousands with starvation. 

273. Establishment of the Independent Treasury System. 
— When Jackson was fighting the United States Bank, he had 
withdrawn the public moneys from that institution and 
distributed them among various private banks, " pet banks " 
as they were called by his enemies. In the panic of 1837 
many of the " pet banks " failed, and the government lost 
a great deal of money. For that reason Van Buren formed 
a plan to have the government take care of its own money 
without the aid of banks. In 1840 sub-treasuries were es- 
tablished at New York, Boston, Philadelphia, St. Louis, 
and New Orleans, where vaults were constructed for the 
reception of government funds. This plan has been known 
as the Independent Treasury System. 

274. The Election of 1840. — The Democrats renomi- 
nated Van Buren for President in 1840. The Whigs chose 
William Henry Harrison, Indian fighter and hero of the 
War of 1 81 2, as their leader, with John Tyler of Virginia 
as candidate for Vice-President. The campaign, which 
was unlike any other poHtical contest in our history, proved 
most exciting. 

Harrison was referred to by an opponent as a rough 
frontiersman whose place was in a log-cabin drinking hard 
cider, and thus he became known as the log-cabin candidate. 



2c;o 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 



The Whigs accepted the title as one of honor; they were 
glad to put their candidate forward as a poor man and a 
friend of the people. No Whig gathering was complete 
without a picture of a log-cabin .with a barrel of cider in 
front, a coonskin nailed up to dry, and other evidences of 
frontier life. Sometimes a cabin was built and drawn on 

wheels in the torchlight processions 
of the campaign. 

W^hile they praised their own candi- 
date as a plain man of the people, 
the Whigs denounced Van Buren as 
an aristocrat. He used, dishes of 
gold and silver on his table, they 
said, and dressed himself before 
costly French mirrors. The people 
of the West voted for Harrison be- 
WiLLiAM Henry Harrison cause he was the "log-cabin candi- 
date " and the " hero of Tippecanoe," 
and they voted against Van Buren because they held him re- 
sponsible for their sufferings in the hard times of 1837. The 
East wanted an increase in tariff duties to protect its manu- 
facturers and so was led to vote for the Whig candidates. 
Harrison and Tyler were chosen by an overwhelming ma- 
jority, receiving 234 electoral votes against 60 for their 
opponents. 

Vocabtilary 
obnoxious panic speculation nullification 




Questions 

I. Explain the new division of parties prior to the election of 1828. 
What was the outcome of this election ? 2. Note the origin of the "spoils 
system" for future reference. 3. State the arguments on both sides of 



THE JACKSONIAN PERIOD 25 1 

nullification. 4. How was a crisis on this question avoided in Jackson's 
administration ? 5. Has the idea of a national bank been reestablished 
since Jackson's time ? 6. Name the famous men of the abolition move- 
ment. 7. What methods did these men use to further their cause ? 
8. How did the panic of 1837 lead to the establishment of sub-treasuries .? 
Is this plan still in operation .'' 9. What seemed to be the issue in the 
election of 1840 .? 



CHAPTER XVII 



TEXAS, OREGON, AND MEXICO 



The Administrations of Tyler and Polk 

275. Tyler Becomes President; Quarrels with the 
Whigs. — General Harrison, who was already an old man, 
was taken ill soon after his inauguration and died April 4, 
1841, having been in office just a 
month. In accordance with the Con- 
stitution, the Vice-President, John 
Tyler of Virginia, succeeded to the 
presidency. 

The Whigs had opposed Jackson's 
bank policy and, now that they were 
in power, hoped to reestablish a United 
States Bank; but when they passed a 
bill for that purpose, it was promptly 
vetoed by President Tyler. The new 
President was not a very strong Whig; 
he had left the Democratic Party be- 
cause he disliked Jackson ; but he had not given up his 
Democratic principles. Henry Clay and other Whig leaders 
denounced him for his veto of the bank bill and " read him 
out of the party." The whole Cabinet, with the exception 
of Daniel Webster, Secretary of State, resigned to show 
their disapproval of the President's action. The political 

252 




John Tyler 



TEXAS, OREGON, AND MEXICO 253 

quarrel thus begun in the early months of Tyler's ad- 
ministration continued as long as he remained in office. 
The victory of "Tippecanoe and Tyler too" proved of 
little value to the Whigs. 

276. The Webster-Ashburton Treaty. — One reason why 
Webster remained in the Cabinet when his colleagues 
resigned was that he might finish negotiations which he had 
begun with the British government concerning the north- 
east boundary of Maine. In the treaty of 1783, which 
recognized American independence, the St. Croix River 
was named as forming part of the boundary line between 
Canada and the United States; but, as there were several 
rivers of that name in the Northeast, a dispute arose as to 
which was to be accepted as the true boundary. The 
United States claimed about twelve thousand square miles 
of territory more than the British were willing to concede; 
in the course of time Americans and Canadians began to 
penetrate this disputed area; and, in 1838, an armed con- 
flict was with difficulty avoided. Webster determined 
to settle the matter peaceably, if possible, and in 1842 
made an agreement with Lord Ashburton, the British rep- 
resentative, by which the United States received somewhat 
more than half the disputed territory. 

At the same time the two nations agreed to aid each 
other in putting down the African slave trade. 

277. The Establishment of the Republic of Texas. — 
Americans in their search for new lands were not disposed 
to stop at the western boundary of the United States, and 
many thousands of them from 1820 to 1830 were attracted 
by the fertile soil of what is now the state of Texas. The 
Mexican authorities who controlled the land were glad at 
first to welcome American settlers, but soon they began to 



254 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

fear that the newcomers would establish a government of 
their own and separate Texas from Mexico. In 1830 the 
Mexicans sought to prevent further American settlement 
in Texas, and at the same time to prohibit the further 
introduction of slaves. The Americans refused to accept 
either of these regulations and prepared to assert their 
independence. This they finally achieved in 1836 at the 
battle of San Jacinto, under the leadership of General Sam 
Houston, a former governor of Tennessee and a friend of 
Andrew Jackson. The next year the United States rec- 
ognized the independence of the Republic of Texas. 

278. Annexation of Texas (1845). — A proposal was soon 
made for the annexation of the new republic to the United 
States. The people were chiefly Americans and besides 
had been put to heavy expense to maintain an army of 
defense against Mexico and were, therefore, anxious to secure 
annexation. The South looked with friendly eyes on the 
proposal, because annexation would mean the extension of 
slavery into new fields and might greatly increase the 
strength of the South in the Senate. For Texas was so large 
that four or five states could be carved out of it. The 
anti-slavery forces of the North protested against the exten- 
sion of slave territory, and threats were heard m Massachu- 
setts that annexation would be followed by the break-up 
of the Union. Others opposed annexation because it might 
lead to war with Mexico, which had not yet recognized the 
independence of Texas. 

But a sentiment favorable to the entrance of Texas into 
the Union was growing, as was shown in the presidential 
election of 1844 when the Democrats, who demanded annexa- 
tion, were victorious. President Tyler urged Congress to 
act; and, a few days before he laid down the duties of his 



TEXAS, OREGON, AND MEXICO 



255 



office in March, 1845, he was able to send a messenger to 
Texas with an offer of annexation. It was accepted and in 
December of that year the Repubhc of Texas became a state 
of the American Union. 

279. The Election of Polk. — In the campaign of 1844 
the Democrats demanded not only the annexation of Texas 
but the occupation of the whole of Oregon. 
As the South wanted Texas and the West 
wanted Oregon, those two sections united 
in support of the Democratic candidate, 
James K. Polk of Tennessee, who was 
successful over Henry Clay, his Whig 
opponent. 

280. The Oregon Question. — Oregon 
was the name given to the country west 
of the Rocky Mountains lying between 
the Spanish possessions in California and 
the Russian possessions in Alaska ; that is, 
from 42° to 54° 40' north latitude. The explorations of 
Captain Gray along the Oregon coast and his discovery 
of the Columbia River in 1792, as well as the expedition 
of Lewis and Clark in 1 805-1 806, laid the foundation for 
American claims to Oregon. John Jacob Astor's Pacific 
Fur Company founded a trading post, Astoria, at the mouth 
of the Columbia in 181 1, and other American merchants 
and traders entered the country to traffic with the Indians. 
Englishmen also had explored the country and were busily 
engaged in the fur trade. 

As both nations claimed Oregon and were unable to agree 
upon a division of it, they decided in 1818 that the country 
should be " free and open " to Americans and British alike 
for a period of ten years. As the ten-year period drew to a 




James K. Polk 



2S6 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

close, the United States offered to make the forty-ninth 
parallel the dividing line west of the Rockies as it was east 
of the mountains ; but England held out for the Columbia 
River as the boundary. Failing to agree on a boundary line, 
the two nations in 1827 extended the agreement of 181 8 in- 
definitely, but either party was free to bring it to a close 
upon giving a year's notice. 

In the next ten or fifteen years Americans became greatly 
interested in Oregon ; they heard of the agricultural possi- 
bilities of the region and a considerable number of immi- 
grants made their way into the rich Willamette Valley in 
the western part of what is now the state of Oregon. In 
1843 about one thousand persons with sixty wagons and 
several thousand head of cattle crossed the plains over the 
famous Oregon Trail from Independence, Missouri. A 
larger number went the next year; and in 1845 a still 
larger number caught the " Oregon fever," as it was called. 
Three thousand persons crossed the plains that year. 
Widespread interest had been aroused and many insisted 
that the United States should retain the whole of Oregon, 
even at the cost of war with Great Britain. " Fifty-four 
Forty or Fight " (54° 40') became the campaign cry of 
the Democrats in 1844 when they elected Polk. 

281. The Question Settled (1846). — Though his party 
had demanded the whole of Oregon, Polk, in the early 
months of his presidency, offered England the line of the 
forty-ninth parallel, but the British minister at Washington 
rejected the offer. The President then prepared to assert 
the claims of the United States to the entire region in dis- 
pute. He urged Congress to extend the laws of the United 
States over the settlers of Oregon, to establish Indian agencies 
beyond the mountains, and to provide military protection 



TEXAS, OREGON, AND MEXICO 257 

for the Oregon Trail. In May, 1846, he gave notice that the 
agreement of 1827 for the joint occupation of Oregon was at 
an end. The vigorous stand of the President had its effect 
in England, and the British Government itself now proposed 
the forty-ninth parallel as a satisfactory boundary line. 
The proposal was accepted and by a treaty of July, 1846, 
the United States became firmly established on the Pacific 
coast. 

282. War with Mexico. — Before the Oregon treaty was 
signed, the country was at war with Mexico. Our southern 
neighbor had not recognized the independence of Texas 
and had announced that an annexation of that state would 
amount to a declaration of war. When we finally offered 
to annex Texas, the Mexican Government broke off diplo- 
matic relations with the United States and prepared to 
resist the loss of Texas by force of arms. President Polk 
ordered troops under General Zachary Taylor to proceed 
to the defense of Texas and toward the end of the year 
(1845) sent a commissioner to Mexico to arrange, if possible, 
a peaceable settlement of the dispute. 

Polk was very anxious to secure the Mexican province 
of California, particularly the fine bay and harbor of San 
Francisco, and he thought that the Mexican Government, 
which was badly in need of money, might be induced for a 
good round sum to sell California, on which its hold was slight, 
and give up its claim to Texas. Mexico appeared unwilling 
to discuss the matter, and Polk, early in 1846, ordered General 
Taylor to advance to the Rio Grande. The President seems 
to have thought that the presence of an armed force so 
near the border would make Mexico more willing to come 
to a peaceable settlement, but he was mistaken and Taylor's 
advance led directly to war. 
s 



258 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 



Texas claimed the Rio Grande as its southwestern 
boundary; whereas Mexico said the boundary was the 
Nueces River, farther east. When Taylor approached the 




Field of the Campaigns in the War with Mexico 

Rio Grande, he was warned by the Mexican authorities to 
withdraw beyond the Nueces ; he refused, as he had gone 
there with the intention of upholding the Texan claim. A 
few days later a small detachment of American troops 
was attacked and defeated by a Mexican force. When 



TEXAS, OREGON, AND MEXICO 259 

news of this skirmish reached Washington, Congress de- 
clared (May 12, 1846) that war existed, by act of Mexico. 

Before war was formally declared, General Taylor had 
fought two battles at Monterey and had taken that city. 
Early in 1847 (February 23) Santa Anna, the Mexican 
leader, attacked Taylor's army of 5000 men at Buena Vista 
with a force four times as large, but was disastrously de- 
feated. With this victory for the American arms the war 
in northe'rn Mexico came to an end. 

283. California Is Occupied. — If Polk could not buy 
California, he now had an opportunity to take it by force 
of arms. He had given orders to an American squadron in 
the Pacific to seize San Francisco and other harbors on the 
coast if war broke out with Mexico; and immediately after 
the declaration of war he sent General Stephen W. Kearney 
overland to cooperate with the naval force. Kearney left 
Fort Leavenworth toward the end of June, and on August 
18 occupied the city of Santa Fe without opposition. He 
organized a temporary government for New Mexico and then 
set out with a small force for Cahfornia. On his way he 
heard that the naval forces of the United States had already 
occupied the chief harbors on the coast, and it fell to him 
merely to organize a provisional government for the con- 
quered province. This he did in the spring of 1847. 

284. The Capture of Mexico City. — After the war had 
been gomg on for some months, President Polk and his 
advisers decided to strike directly at the center of Mexican 
power by taking the important seaport of Vera Cruz and 
marching from there upon the City of Mexico. General 
Winfield Scott, who had won a good name in the War of 
1812, was placed in charge of the expedition, and at the end 
of March, 1847, captured Vera Cruz after a brief siege. 




General Winfield Scott 



260 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

Cerro Gordo, a strongly fortified position about eighty 
miles inland, was taken April 17. Operations then ceased 

for several months while 

efforts were made to secure 

peace. Nothing came of 

peace negotiations. 



th 

and early in August Scott 
pushed on towards the 
capital. The great for- 
tress of Chapultepec was 
taken by assault, Sep- 
tember 13, and the next 
day the American forces 
entered the City of 
Mexico. 

285. Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo (1848). — Negotia- 
tions for peace were again undertaken, and on February 2, 
1848, the treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo was signed. By 
its terms the Rio Grande was recognized as the Texas 
boundary, and New Mexico and California passed to the 
United States, which agreed to pay ^15,000,000 for them 
and to assume the claims of American citizens against 
Mexico. 

A few years later a dispute arose over the boundary line 
between the two countries and to settle the difficulty the 
United States purchased (1853) a strip of territory south of 
the Gila River, known as the Gadsden Purchase because its 
acquisition was arranged for by James Gadsden, the Ameri- 
can Minister to Mexico at the time. 

286. The Discovery of Gold in California. — Ten days 
before the treaty of peace was signed, gold was discovered 
in California on the south fork of the American River near 



I 



■1 



TEXAS, OREGON, AND MEXICO 



261 



the present site of Coloma. It was soon found that the 
region was rich in gold deposits, and before the summer was 
over, great numbers of gold-seekers from San Francisco 
and other western settlements had flocked to the scene of the 
discovery. As the news spread to the East toward the end 
of the year, thousands prepared to migrate to the " Land 
of Gold." In the spring of 1849 more than 20,000 gold- 
hunters set out across the plains with their cattle and sup- 
plies. Other thousands went by way of the Isthmus of 
Panama, and still others took the all-water route around 
Cape Horn. It is estimated that about 80,000 immigrants, 
" the forty-niners," had arrived by the end of 1849. 

287. The California Missions. — Before the American 
occupation, California had been the scene of a remarkable 
work of civilization among the In- 
dians. Franciscan missionaries, under 
the leadership of Father Junipero 
Serra, founded an Indian mission at 
San Diego in July, 1769; in the next 
fifteen years, before the great leader's 
death, nine other missions had been 
established ; and in later years as 
many more were founded. " At the 
height of mission prosperity," writes 
Father Zephyrin Engelhardt, the 
learned historian of the California 
missions, " 30,000 Indians lived under the paternal eyes of 
the Franciscans within the shadow of twenty-one missions, 
who were there fed, clothed, and educated according to 
their capacity, with no expense to the government. The 
missions maintained themselves through raising stock and 
agriculture under the direction of the friars. Everything 




Father Junipero Serra 



262 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

needed was manufactured at these establishments by the 
Indians, directed by their spiritual guides." 

This noble experiment was doomed to failure largely 
'through the cupidity of the Mexican officials in California, 
who, in the years preceding the American occupation, con- 
fiscated the property of the Indians and dispersed the 
natives. The mission buildings which have remained have 
had a marked influence on western American architecture. 

288. The Clayton-Bulwer Treaty (1850). — As a result 
of the American possession of California and Oregon, Ameri- 
can capitalists became interested in a plan to build an inter- 
oceanic canal across Nicaragua. But Great Britain had 
acquired control of the eastern end of the proposed route 
and it seemed necessary to secure her consent to the building 
project. A treaty between the United States and Great 
Britain for the purpose of controlling this or any other 
roadway across the isthmus was made in 1850 and is known 
as the Clayton-Bulwer treaty, Clayton being the American 
Secretary of State and Bulwer the British Minister at Wash- 
ington at the time. By the terms of the treaty, the two 
nations pledged themselves to support and encourage the 
construction of the canal and not to seek exclusive control 
over it. The Clayton-Bulwer treaty was annulled in 1901, 
when the United States wished to build the Panama Canal 
under its own control. 

Vocabulary 
penetrate vigilance cupidity 

Map Exercise 

1. Trace carefully on a map the campaigns in the Mexican War. 

2. Locate all places of interest in California mentioned in this chapter 



TEXAS, OREGON, AND MEXICO 263 

Questions 

I. What do you know of Tyler's history when he became President? 

2. Was the annexation of Texas by the United States justifiable ? 

3. How long is the boundary line between Canada and the United States ? 
What disputes concerning this boundary have arisen ? Give the solution 
in each case. 4. What causes were given by the United States for war 
with Mexico ? 5. Give the terms and name of the treaty closing the 
war. 6. What remains to-day of the early California missions ? Name 
some of the most famous. 7. Does the Clayton-Bulwer treaty tell 
anything of the relations at the time between the United States and 
Great Britain .? 



CHAPTER XVIII 

SOCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL CHANGES 

289. The Growth in Population. — In the years we are 
considering, a very large increase in the population of the 
country took place. From seventeen milhon in 1840, the 
numbers rose to thirty-one million in i860. Immigration 
was an important factor in this growth ; the Irish famine 
sent great numbers to America in 1847 and later years, and 
at the same time a series of bad harvests and poHtical dis- 
turbances in Germany swelled the tide of immigration. In 
1849 the number of immigrants rose to nearly 300,000. 
After the Irish and the Germans, the Enghsh formed the 
largest group of immigrants in this period, though French, 
Swiss, and Dutch came in considerable numbers. In i860 
there were over four milhon persons of foreign birth in the 
country. 

The newcomers settled chiefly in the North, avoid- 
ing the South because they could not compete with slave 
labor. Those who had means were attracted in large 
numbers to the fertile lands of the Northwest. Others 
obtained work on the railroads which were building into 
the West, and by this means earned enough to set them- 
selves up as farmers on the cheap lands which the new rail- 
roads opened to settlement. At the same time the growing 
factory towns of the East offered employment to thousands 
of immigrants. 

264 



SOCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL CHANGES 265 

The growth of population and the extension of agriculture 
are seen in the admission of these new states : Arkansas 
(1836); Michigan (1837); Florida and Texas (1845); 
Iowa (1846) ; Wisconsin (1848) ; California (1849) ; Minne- 
sota (1858) ; and Oregon (1859). 

290. Labor Conditions in the Factories. — The use of 
machinery for spinning and weaving and other manufactur- 
ing processes increased rapidly after the War of 181 2, and 
many kinds of work which had previously been done in the 
home or in the small shop were now performed in factories. 
Factory towns grew up rapidly in New England and the 
Middle Atlantic states, and workingmen's families, accus- 
tomed to life in the country, were crowded into unwholesome 
city dwellings. The laws did little to protect the working 
people, who toiled, often in unsanitary surroundings, for 
thirteen or even fifteen hours a day. Even women and 
children were required in many mills to be at work at half 
past four in the morning and were beaten by brutal over- 
seers if their work seemed msufficient m amount or otherwise 
unsatisfactory. In many of the cotton mills children of 
six years were permitted to work. Under these conditions, 
the children of the working families received little education ; 
in 1830 a Philadelphia labor paper complained that in some 
of the factories not one sixth of the boys and girls could read 
and write. 

As a protest against these conditions, labor unions were 
organized whose members sought to interest the political 
parties in their grievances. By strikes and by political 
action, a ten-hour day was secured for public work in some 
of the cities. President Van Buren, in 1840, directed that 
the working day in the navy yards be reduced to ten hours. 
Private employers gradually conformed to the change. 



266 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

Among other demands of the workingmen, granted in the 
years following, were a general system of education in 
which the laborers' children might share, the abolition of 
imprisonment for debt, and the free distribution of lands to 
actual settlers. 

291. The Right To Vote Is Extended. — One reason for 
the growing political importance of workingmen was the 
general adoption of manhood suffrage in the North. In 
colonial times it was usual to require a property qualification 
for voting and office-holding. This requirement continued 
in the eastern states for some years after the Revolution. In 
the West, however, there was a more democratic spirit, and 
the new states generally attached no property qualification 
to the right to vote. This western view in time affected the 
older states, and Maryland adopted manhood suffrage in 
1810, Connecticut in 1818, New York in 1826, and at 
the same time other states reduced the property qualification. 

Other political restrictions were removed ; Jews and 
Catholics were permitted to hold office, and church dis- 
establishment took place in Connecticut and Massachusetts. 

292. Dorr's Rebellion. — Manhood suffrage was secured 
in Rhode Island only after a bitter conflict. The state 
constitution was the old colonial charter of Charles II, which 
limited the vote to owners of real estate and their eldest 
sons. These men refused to extend the franchise, and a 
popular uprising against their control of affairs took place. 
Those who could vote organized a convention and set up a 
state constitution of their own ; they elected a governor, 
Thomas W. Dorr, and a legislature, and for a few weeks in 
1842 attempted to run the affairs of the state of Rhode 
Island. The regular government protested and made 
arrangements to assert its authority by military force. 



SOCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL CHANGES 267 

Dorr was convicted of treason and sentenced to life im- 
prisonment, but was released in 1845. The movement 
which he directed, however, made a powerful impression 
on the land-owners of Rhode Island. They revised their 
constitution (1842) and granted manhood suffrage to native 
Americans. Forty years later it was extended to naturalized 
citizens. 

293. The Homestead Act Develops the West. — In 1820 the 
price of government land was reduced from two dollars to a 
dollar and a quarter an acre, and the purchaser could buy as 
small a tract as eighty acres. Thus for a hundred dollars a 
man could secure title to a small farm. Ten years later the 
first " preemption act " was passed. Its purpose was to 
protect actual settlers, or " squatters," who entered the new 
regions of the West before the lands were surveyed. Specu- 
lators were in the habit of buying up the best lands as these 
were surveyed. They often dispossessed pioneers who 
had brought some of the land under cultivation, and de- 
prived them in many instances of the value of their improve- 
ments. Under the preemption act the settler had the first 
right to buy, at the established price, the land on which he 
settled. 

Later, by the passage of the Homestead Act (1862), 
it was made even easier for the poor man to get a farm. By 
this act 160 acres were given free to the actual settler on 
condition of five years' residence. This act was urged by 
Westerners, who wanted their communities to grow rapidly, 
and by workingmen in the East, who saw in free lands a 
chance to escape from eastern factory conditions. 

294. The McCormick Reaper. — The progress of in- 
vention, as well as the generous land policy of the govern- 
ment, hastened the occupation of western lands. 



268 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 



In 1 83 1 Cyrus Hall McCormick, a Virginia farmer, in- 
vented a reaper which would cut as much grain in a day as 
six men working with scythes. The new machine made its 
way slowly at first, but in 1847 McCormick set up in Chicago 
a factory from which he could readily supply the need of 
the farmers in the new prairie region, where there was a 
great dearth of laborers and labor-saving machinery was 




■:l-.j iMlllll ■MlliTV." 

■■'I 



McCormick's Reaper 

sure to be appreciated. The reaper soon came into general 
use, and in 1858 it was estimated that the invention was 
worth fifty-five million dollars a year to the people of the 
United States. In 1872 a self-binder was added to the reaper 
and permitted another vast saving of labor. 

Threshing machines came into general use by 1840, thus 
doing away with the old hand-flail. The invention of 
cultivators, hay-rakes, seed-drills, and other implements 
permitted the use of horse power in the place of hand labor 



SOCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL CHANGES 



269 



and greatly increased the amount of land that could be 
tilled by the individual farmer. 

295. The Sewing Machine. — In many other lines of 
industry notable mechanical improvements were made 
during these years. One of the most important was the 
invention of the sewing machine, brought out in 1846 by 
Elias Howe, a Boston mechanic. It did much to lighten the 
labor of women in the home and also greatly reduced the cost 
of clothing. Isaac Singer, 
one of the early manufac- 
turers of sewing machines, 
introduced the plan of selling 
by installments and so placed 
this valuable labor-saving 
device withm the reach of 
persons of small means. In 
i860 over forty thousand 
machines were sold annually. 
The sewmg machme was soon 
applied to the manufacture 
of shoes, thereby permit- 
ting a reduction of the labor 
cost of a pair of machine-made shoes to less than one tenth 
of a hand-sewn pair. 

296. The Electric Telegraph. — In 1844 Samuel F. B. 
Morse, a New York scientist, prevailed upon Congress to 
appropriate ^30,000 for the building of a telegraph line from 
Washington to Baltimore. Morse had long been inter- 
ested in the possibility of sending messages by electric wire, 
and as early as 1835 had discovered a means of doing so, 
but it took him many years to convince the public of the 
value of his discovery. When the new line was completed. 




Howe's Sewing Machine 



270 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 




Cyrus Field 



Morse's first message successfully transmitted from the 
Capitol at Washington was: "What hath God wrought." 
The general public now became interested in the new 
means of communication, and in a few years the chief cities 
of the East were linked by electric tele- 
graph lines, 50,000 miles of telegraph 
being in operation by i860. In 1861 a 
line was extended to San Francisco. 

The project of connecting America 
and Europe by an ocean telegraph was 
taken up by Cyrus Field, and in 1858 
a cable was laid. Messages were trans- 
mitted for a few weeks, when the cable 
parted. It was not until 1866 that a 
transatlantic service was permanently 
established. 

297. Ocean Steamships. — As we have read (Sec. 225), a 
vessel propelled partly by steam power crossed the Atlantic 
in 1819, but it was not until 1838 that the voyage was made 
with steam power alone. In that year two English steam- 
ships crossed the Atlantic, the Sirius and the Great Westerriy 
the latter making the passage from Bristol to New York in 
fifteen days. In 1840 the Cunard Line began the operation 
of a regular steamship service between Liverpool and New 
York. About this time iron ships began to displace those 
of wood construction, thus taking away from the United 
States the great advantages it had in the possession of cheap 
and abundant materials for ship-building. 

298. Newspapers and Books. — Improvements in the 
printing-press and cheaper methods of paper-making per- 
mitted publishers to reduce the cost of newspapers and 
greatly increase their circulation and their influence upon 



SOCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL CHANGES 



271 



public opinion. The New York Sun (1833) and the Herald 
(1835) were the first daily newspapers in America to be sold 
for one cent. The utilization of the electric telegraph made 
it possible for these and other papers to gather the news of 
the world with a rapidity and completeness before unknown. 
In 1 841 Horace Greeley founded the New York Tribune. 
Under his direction it continued for thirty years to be the 
most powerful journal in America. Weekly and monthly 
periodicals were established in large numbers, and their 
growth kept pace with that of the daily press. 

In the field of literature a number of notable names 
appeared. Edgar Allan Poe and Nathaniel Hawthorne 




Longfellow, Lowell, and Poe 

won renown as writers of fiction ; Henry Wadsworth Long- 
fellow, in his Evangeline (1847) and Miles Standish (1858), 
secured for himself a permanent place among American 
poets ; James Russell Lowell in his Biglozu Papers de- 
nounced in rhyme those who had brought on the Mexican 
War and ridiculed the Southern leaders. John Greenleaf 
Whittier was another poet who took part in the political 
discussion of the time. Oliver Wendell Holmes brought 
out in 1857 his genial Autocrat of the Breakfast Table, which 



272 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

gave him a national reputation ; and George Bancroft was 
busily engaged on his great History of the United States, 
which he began to pubHsh in 1834 and finished forty years 
later. 

299. Education. — Great interest was shown in the exten- 
sion of educational facilities. The generous gifts of land 
which the Federal government made for educational pur- 
poses materially aided the West in building schools, and the 
demands of the workingmen in the East promoted an interest 
in education in that region. The common schools were 
made more efficient, and scores of colleges were founded. 

The great volume of Irish and German immigration be- 
tween 1840 and i860 led to a wide extension of Catholic 
schools. In earlier times denominational schools were often 
recognized as a part of the public school system and received 
a share of the school taxes, but the anti-Catholic movement 
which swept over the country with the coming of large 
numbers of Irish and German Catholics put a stop to this 
just arrangement. Desiring religious instruction for their 
children, the Catholics of the country undertook, often at 
great sacrifice, the maintenance of their own schools. 

300. The Know-nothing Party. — The anti-Catholic 
movement became of political importance in 1852 soon after 
the organization of a society called " The Order of the Star- 
Spangled Banner," whose purpose was to bar foreigners and 
Catholics, native and foreign, from the privileges of citizen- 
ship. The organization was an oath-bound secret society, 
whose members soon became known as " Know-nothings " 
because their invariable answer was " I don't know " when 
questioned about the activities of their society. 

As early as 1830 there was a movement to debar Irish 
immigrants from citizenship, and at times the movement 



SOCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL CHANGES 273 

assumed the form of a violent attack on Catholic churches 
and schools. In 1834 a convent of the Ursuline nuns at 
Charlestown, Massachusetts, was burned. Ten years later 
two Catholic churches in Philadelphia were reduced to 
ashes, and a hostile mob compelled, for a brief period, the 
suspension of public worship in other Catholic churches of 
the city. Similar acts of violence took place in other cities 
of the country. The most violent outbreak occurred at the 
height of the Know-nothing movement. On " Bloody 
Monday," August 5, 1855, in Louisville, Kentucky, nearly 
one hundred Irish were killed and twenty houses burned, 
while the city authorities, dominated by the Know-nothings, 
looked calmly on. 

In the elections of 1854 over a hundred congressmen owed 
their seats to Know-nothing influence, and several of the 
state administrations now came under the control of the 
party. For a time it was feared that the Know-nothings 
would sweep the country, but the movement was lost to 
view after 1856, when the slavery issue and the threat of 
disunion occupied the public mind. 

301. The Mormons. — The rise of Mormonism, a reli- 
gious movement of the time, is of interest because it led to 
the settlement of Utah. The founder of the Mormons 
was Joseph Smith, who asserted his discovery of certain 
golden plates upon which were engraved prophecies which 
he pubhshed at Palmyra, New York, in 1830, as the Book of 
Mormon. He later removed to Ohio, where his followers 
took the name of " Latter Day Saints." In 1840 Smith 
established a settlement at Nauvoo, Illinois, and it was here 
that the practice of polygamy was begun. The Mormon 
leader aroused the hostility of persons in the neighborhood, 
and in 1844 he was put in jail and then killed by a mob. His 

T 



274 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

followers, under the leadership of Brigham Young, crossed 
the plains in 1847 and established a Mormon settlement at 
Salt Lake City. 

302. Relations With the Indians. — In 1834 Congress 
established the Indian Territory in the valley of the Arkansas 
as a home for various tribes of Indians who were to be 
removed from the region east of the Mississippi. During 
the years from 1830 to 1838 the Creeks, Cherokees, Chicka- 
saws, and Choctaws of the South were compelled, in a great 
measure by force and fraud, to leave their old homes and 
cross the Mississippi. Some of these tribes had long been 
civilized and desired merely to remain peaceably on the 
lands which their people had cultivated for years. Their 
expulsion was an act of brutal aggression. 

The Seminoles of Florida in 1833 signed a treaty to remove 
to the West, but a group under the leadership of Osceola, 
a half-breed, resisted the United States forces. A war, 
lasting until 1842, was required to secure the final removal of 
these Indians. Another Indian conflict of the period was 
the Black Hawk War of 1833 in western Illinois. Following 
a cruel campaign, the Sac and Fox Indians remaining in 
Illinois were driven beyond the Mississippi, and their 
leader. Black Hawk, was captured. 

As a result no large group of Indians was left east of that 
river. From this time the government attempted to put 
the reservation system into operation. Under this system 
the government sought to regulate trade with the Indian 
tribes, to restrict the sale of alcoholic liquor among them, 
and to keep them quiet by a distribution of food and blankets. 

303. Father de Smet's Work. — Attempts were made 
from the earliest times to bring the Christian faith to the 
Indians, and no group of men had greater success in this 



SOCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL CHANGES 275 

missionary field than the Jesuit Fathers. In the period we 
are now studying, a Belgian Jesuit, Father Peter de Smet, 
proved himself a worthy successor of Allouez and Marquette. 
In 1840 De Smet set out from St. Louis in response to an 
invitation from Catholic Iroquois dwelling among the 
Flatheads and Nez Perces of the Rocky Mountains. These 
Iroquois had been converted to Christianity in their eastern 
home and had brought a knowledge of the Christian religion 
to the Rocky Mountain tribes. De Smet's first permanent 
mission in the far West was estabhshed in 1841 on the Bitter 
Root River in Montana. From the beginning his success 
as a missionary was extraordinary and he gained a remark- 
able ascendancy over his converts of the forest. He devoted 
the next thirty years to their interest, traveling nearly 
180,000 miles in the course of his missionary journeys. 
In 1 85 1 the Federal government requested his mediation 
at a general congress of Indians near Fort Laramie, and so 
great was his success on this occasion that he was repeatedly 
called upon in later years to bring peace between the Indians 
and whites. His most notable service was in 1868, when, 
alone, he penetrated the territory of the hostile Sioux and 
secured a treaty of peace from these Indians who had been 
on the warpath for years. 

304. Temperance and Other Reforms. — The use of 
alcoholic liquors was general among all classes of society in 
the early years of the nineteenth century, and drunkenness 
was common. A growing protest against the abuse of 
intoxicants may be noted about 1825, and in the next few 
years a thousand or more total abstmence societies were 
formed. In later years the movement became associated 
with a demand for the prohibition of the sale of alcoholic 
liquors; and in 1846, Maine, under the leadership of Neal 



276 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

Dow, enacted the first state-wide prohibition law. The 
temperance movement received a powerful impetus from 
the visit to America from 1849 to 1852 of Father Theobald 
Mathew, the Irish temperance apostle. He visited the chief 
cities of the country and many smaller places, administering 
the pledge to 500,000 persons durmg his stay in this country. 

In other fields of reform a forward movement is seen. 
Public hospitals for the care of the insane were established 
and likewise special schools for the deaf and blind. In the 
prisons efforts were made to separate youthful offenders 
from the more hardened criminals and to remedy to some 
extent the brutalizing conditions surrounding the jails and 
penitentiaries of the time. 

305. American Interest in the Far East. — We shall bring 
to a close our brief study of the changes in American life 
during this period with a reference to the growth of American 
interest in the Pacific. Even before the acquisition of CaHfor- 
nia, American missionaries and traders had become ac- 
quainted with Hawaii ; and American commerce with China, 
though restricted to the single port of Canton, had become 
important. In 1844 a treaty was secured which gave 
Americans the right to reside and trade in five Chinese 
ports. The increasing trade with China made it desirable 
that American ships crossing the Pacific might have access to 
Japanese harbors as a refuge from storms and to take on 
supplies. In 1854 Commodore Matthew Perry visited 
Japan with an American fleet and induced the Japanese to 
open some of their ports to American commerce. The 
treaty which he obtained was the first ever made by Japan 
with a western power, and from it dates the beginning of 
Japan's development into one of the great nations of the 
world. 



SOCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL CHANGES 277 

Vocabulary 

disestablishment polygamy 

equitable preemption 

manhood suffrage restrictions 

Questions 

I. In what year was your state admitted to the Union ? 2. Can you 
compare favorably factory conditions to-day with those of 1840? Why? 
3. What seems to you the worst feature of factory conditions at that 
time ? 4. How long has manhood suffrage prevailed in your state ? 

5. Has your state still any land coming under the Homestead Laws ? 

6. Why was there no feeling against the use of machmery on farms in the 
West ? 7. Make a list of men made famous by great inventions. 
8. What is the real value of a newspaper ? How can a newspaper's 
power be abused ? 9. How many of the books mentioned in the text 
have you read ? 10. How did the Know-nothing Party violate one of 
the great principles of our democracy ? 11. What responsibility have we 
toward the Indians ? Do you think we have treated them fairly ? Have 
you ever visited an Indian reservation? 12. How did Father de Smet 
try to fulfill his share of the white man's duty to the Indians ? 13. Has 
the awakening of the Far East proved a good thing for the United States ? 



CHAPTER XIX 

THE CONTEST OVER SLAVERY 

The Administrations of Taylor, Fillmore, Pierce, 
AND Buchanan 

306. The Slavery Question in a New Form ; the Wihnot 
Proviso. — After the Mexican War the extension of slavery 
became the chief poHtical question of the country, a question 
which was to be answered only by an appeal to arms. We 
have aheady seen that a vigorous movement for the abohtion 
of slavery had developed during Jackson's presidency. 
Through the medium of anti-slavery societies, of newspapers 
and public meetings, it gained many converts. At the 
same time many thousands of persons who were convinced 
that slavery was an evil institution refused to join in the 
abolition movement and contented themselves with a pro- 
test against the extension of slavery into new territory. 
They tried hard to prevent the annexation of Texas and 
declared that if annexation were carried, the North would 
have a right to secede from the Union. Texas was annexed 
in spite of their protests, but the Mexican War, with its ac- 
quisition of California and New Mexico, soon gave them 
another opportunity to denounce the extension of slavery. 

In the early months of the Mexican War, in 1846, a bill 
came before the lower House of Congress appropriating 
^2,000,000 to compensate Mexico for the lands she was about 

278 



THE CONTEST OVER SLAVERY 



279 



to lose. David Wilmot of Pennsylvania secured an amend- 
ment to the bill providing that none of the territory ac- 
quired as a result of the war should be open to slavery. 
Before the matter came to a vote in the Senate, Congress 
adjourned. The next year the " Wilmot Proviso " was again 
accepted by the House but rejected by the Senate, where the 
slave interests were still powerful. 

The South was stirred to great excitement by this attempt 
to keep slavery out of the new lands in the West, and threats 
were freely made that the proviso 
would be resisted even to the point 
of war. Some who wished to pre- 
vent a crisis proposed that the ques- 
tion of slavery in the new regions 
be left to the men who should settle 
there. According to this view, 
when new states were set up their 
inhabitants ought to be free to vote 
upon slavery as upon other ques- 
tions of public importance. This 
doctrine later became associated 
with the name of Stephen A. Douglas, and was known as 
" squatter sovereignty," or " popular sovereignty." 

307. The Free Soil Party. — As the elections of 1848 
approached, excitement over the Wilmot Proviso continued, 
but neither of the great parties was willing to take a stand 
against the extension of slavery. The Whigs nominated 
General Zachary Taylor, hero of the Mexican War, which 
had just come to a close. He was a Louisiana slave-holder 
and acceptable to the South. For the vice-presidency the 
Whigs named Millard Fillmore of New York. The Demo- 
crats found their candidate in Lewis Cass of Michigan, 




Stephen A. Douglas 



28o 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 




Zachary Taylor 



who accepted the doctrines of " squatter sovereignty," — a 
compromise which at the time appealed to many in the South. 

Since neither of the old parties 
would take a stand squarely on 
the Wilmot Proviso, the anti- 
slavery forces undertook to 
name a candidate of their own, 
pledged to fight the extension 
of slavery. At a convention 
in Buffalo they founded the 
Free Soil Party and chose ex- 
President Van Buren as their 
standard-bearer. The New 
York friends of Van Buren, 
who had hoped to see him nominated by the Democrats, 
had been greatly displeased by the naming of Cass and 
now went over in great numbers to the Free Soil Party. 
As a result the Democrats lost New York and General Taylor 
was elected President. 

308. The Compromise of 1850. — In spite of the attempt 
of Whigs and Democrats to ignore the slavery question, the 
agitation continued. Taylor was not long seated in the 
presidential chair when the question thrust itself upon the 
attention of Congress. The rush of gold-seekers to Cali- 
fornia led to a demand for a state government there, while 
the Mormons in Utah and Americans and Mexicans in New 
Mexico were asking for territorial governments. Under 
these conditions the question of slavery in the lands acquired 
from Mexico had to be answered. 

The Californians adopted a " free state " constitution, 
and President Taylor urged Congress to accept it ; but the 
anger of the South was rising and vigorous protests were 



THE CONTEST OVER SLAVERY 



281 




made against the plan. A Southern member of Congress, 
Toombs, of Georgia, avowed " before this House and the 
country, and in the presence of the hving God, that if by 
your legislation you seek to drive us from the territories of 
California and New Mexico ... I am for disunion." His 
speech expressed the views of many 
in the South, where at the end of 
1 849 and in the following year there 
was much talk of secession. At the 
same time the North was aroused, 
and every legislature in that region, 
except one, demanded the exclu- 
sion of slavery in the territories. 

Henry Clay, who had returned to 
the Senate after an absence of eight 
years, came forward in January, 
1850, offering a compromise which 
he hoped would remove the slavery dispute from national 
politics. He proposed : 

1. The admission of California as a free state. 

2. The admission of Utah and New Mexico, with or 
without slavery, as their constitution prescribed at the time 
of admission. 

3. The payment of ten million dollars to Texas for her 
claim to a part of New Mexico. 

4. The abolition of the slave trade in the District of 
Columbia. 

5. The passage of a Fugitive Slave Law which would 
satisfy the South. 

The discussion of these proposals was the last in which fig- 
ured those giants of debate, — ^Clay, Calhoun, and Webster. 
Calhoun opposed the compromise which, he said, could not 



Henry Clay 



282 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 




Millard Fillmork 



save the Union. He demanded the extension of slavery to 
all the territory acquired from Mexico, and proposed an 
amendment to the Constitution pro- 
viding for two presidents, one from 
each section, each with a veto over 
the other's acts. Webster supported 
Clay's proposals in a powerful speech, 
March 7, 1850. " I speak to-day for 
the preservation of the Union," he 
declared in solemn tones ; and it is 
possible that his plea and others for 
the compromise did save the Union. 
Had the compromise been defeated, 
secession might have followed with- 
out war, for many in the North were willing to " let the 
erring sisters depart in peace." 

The death of Calhoun in April removed a great obstacle 
to compromise. In July President Taylor died suddenly, 
thus bringing to the presidency Millard 
Fillmore, a close friend of Clay and of 
the compromise. In the next few 
months, in a series of acts. Congress 
accepted the proposals of Clay, and 
throughout the country there was a 
great rejoicing that the crisis was over. 
309. The Election of 1852. — Many 
hoped the slavery question would no 
longer engage the attention of the 
nation ; and, in the presidential cam- 
paign of 1852, both the leading parties 
indorsed "the Compromise of 1850." The Whigs nomi- 
nated General Winfield Scott, hoping again to win with 




Franklin Pierce 



THE CONTEST OVER SLAVERY 283 

a Mexican War hero. But the Southern Whigs distrusted 
Scott, whom they charged with anti-slavery leanings. They 
voted in such large numbers for Franklin Pierce, the 
democratic candidate, that he was easily elected. 

310. Fugitive Slaves; Uncle Tom's Cabin. — There was 
one part of the compromise which made it difficult for 
men to forget the slavery question. Clay's chief concession 
to the South was a rigorous Fugitive Slave Law. Under 
that law Southern slave-owners made vigorous efforts to 
bring back into slavery negroes who had escaped to the 
North. Opponents of slavery in many sections interfered 
with the business of the " negro-hunters," and rescued 
hundreds of former slaves from the officers who pursued 
them; while the " Underground Railroad" became more 
active than ever in promoting the escape of men and women 
from bondage. 

The sympathy of the North for the negro, and its anger 
over the Fugitive Slave Act, were intensified by the publica- 
tion oi Uncle Torn s Cabin in 1852. The author, Mrs. Harriet 
Beecher Stowe, pictured vividly the possible horrors of the 
slavery system ; and her book, which was published in 
edition after edition, did much to fix in the minds of Northern 
people a hatred of negro slavery. The influence of the book 
continued to grow until the Civil War. 

311. The Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854). — In spite of 
the conflict aroused over the Fugitive Slave Law, sectional 
bitterness seemed to be dying down, when the slavery ques- 
tion was suddenly reopened in a new quarter. Early in 
1854 Senator Douglas of Illinois reported a bill for the 
establishment of territorial governments in Kansas and 
Nebraska, and proposed that the settlers should determine 
whether the new territories were to be admitted into the 



284 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 



Union as free or slave states. The anger of the anti- 
slavery people was at once aroused, for the proposed terri- 
tories were within the region dedicated to freedom by the 
Missouri Compromise of 1820. Though the bill was forced 
through Congress and became a law, it was fought bitterly at 

every step and once during 
the debate in the House of 
Representatives bloodshed 
was with difficulty avoided. 
Outside of Congress the 
passage of the Kansas- 
Nebraska Act stirred up a 
whirlwind of opposition, 
and nearly every Northern 
Congressman who voted for 
it lost his seat at the elec- 
tions that fall. The Mis- 
souri Compromise, which 
had been regarded in the 
North as a permanent settlement, was now suddenly de- 
stroyed. The conflict which it was thought had been closed 
by Clay in 1850 was reopened; this time to be fought to 
the death. 

312. The Struggle for Kansas. — As the status of slavery 
in Kansas was to be determined by the people of that 
territory, men from both free and slave states poured in 
there to take part in the voting. Slave-holders from the 
neighboring state of Missouri sent armed bands across the 
line, while the " Emigrant Aid Society " assisted settlers 
from New England to make their home in Kansas. 

The Missouri men, largely by fraud (they brought in 5000 
" voters " on election day), set up a territorial government. 




Kansas-Nebraska Territory 



THE CONTEST OVER SLAVERY 285 

The anti-slavery people, who had settled chiefly along the 
Kansas River, refused to recognize the government and 
organized one of their own. An armed conflict which broke 
out between the factions was begun by the " Border Ruf- 
fians," as the Missourians were called. John Brown, a 
fanatical New Englander, retaliated with a murderous 
attack on the settlements of the slavery party. Guerrilla 
warfare filled the summer months of 1856. 

313. Formation of the Republican Party. — In 1854, 
while the Kansas-Nebraska Bill was still before Congress, 
steps were taken to establish a new political party to fight 
the extension of slavery. In that year the movement had 
its chief strength in Wisconsin and Michigan, though it was 
taken up elsewhere and elected forty Congressmen. By 
the end of 1855 the Republican Party, as it came to be 
called, was established throughout the free states. It was 
frankly a sectional party, for it made no pretense to strength 
in the Southern states. At the same time the Demo- 
cratic Party was becoming a sectional and pro-slavery party. 
President Pierce had made up his Cabinet chiefly of pro- 
slavery Democrats and had strongly favored the pro- 
slavery attempt to secure control of Kansas. As a result 
anti-slavery Democrats in the North left their party in great 
numbers and went over to the Republicans. 

The Republican Party held its first national convention 
in 1856 and nominated for the presidency John C. Fremont, 
a former Democrat of strong anti-slavery sentiments. The 
Democratic choice fell upon James Buchanan of Pennsylva- 
nia. The condition of " Bleeding Kansas " was the chief 
issue, and the Democrats narrowly escaped defeat, all but 
four Northern states voting for Fremont. During the 
campaign it was freely predicted that RepubHcan success 



286 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 




James Buchanan 



would be followed by the secession of the slave states, a 
Southern Senator declaring that the election of Fremont 

would mean " immediate, absolute, 
eternal separation." 

314. The Dred Scott Decision 
(1857). — President Buchanan had 
scarcely taken up the duties of his 
office when the Supreme Court of 
the United States made a decision 
which further embittered the quar- 
rel over the extension of slavery. 
Dred Scott, a negro slave, had been 
taken by his master to Minnesota 
and later carried back to Missouri 
where, after some years, he sued for his freedom on the ground 
that residence in Minnesota, a region in which slavery was 
forbidden by the Missouri Compromise, had enfranchised 
him. In passing on the case the Supreme Court, led by the 
Chief Justice, Roger B. Taney, declared that Congress had 
no legal power to forbid slavery in the territories. According 
to this view the Missouri Compromise had been uncpnstitu- 
tional from the beginning ; slave-owners were within their 
rights in taking their " property " into any of the territories, 
and the Republican Party, in opposing the extension of 
slavery, was carrying on an illegal agitation. 

In their anger over the decision, many of the extreme 
anti-slavery men talked of secession from a Union which 
tolerated the kind of law laid down by the Supreme Court. 
But most of the men opposed to the extension of slavery 
adopted the view set forth by Abraham Lincoln of Illinois, 
when during the course of a debate with Senator Douglas 
he said : " We think the decision erroneous. We know that 



THE CONTEST OVER SLAVERY 287 

the Court has often overruled its own decisions; and we 
shall do what we can to have it overrule this one." 

315. A Schism in the Democratic Party. — Before the 
close of 1857 an event occurred which brought the country 
a step nearer disunion and civil war. The disturbances of 
the year before in Kansas had come to an end ; but a pro- 
slavery convention, which met at Lecompton in that terri- 
tory, had formulated a constitution which it was trying to 
force on the people of Kansas without submitting it to 
popular approval. In this attempt the slavery interests had 
the aid of President Buchanan, who urged Congress to accept 
the Lecompton Constitution and admit Kansas. Senator 
Douglas, the leading Northern Democrat, refused to follow 
the President's recommendation and declared the action of 
the pro-slavery interests " a trick, a fraud upon the rights 
of the people." The Lecompton Constitution was defeated 
and Kansas waited for admission until 1861 when, after 
some of the Southern states had seceded, it came in as a 
free state. 

The action of Senator Douglas brought upon him the 
enmity of President Buchanan and the Democratic leaders 
of the South ; and the party press in that section denounced 
him as a " deserter," " renegade," and " traitor." The 
schism in the Democratic ranks encouraged their opponents, 
who now began to have hopes of electing a Republican Presi- 
dent in i860. 

316. The Lincoln-Douglas Debates (1858). — The divi- 
sion in the Democratic ranks was made more manifest 
during the political campaign of 1858, when Douglas was 
seeking reelection as Senator from Illinois. Abraham Lin- 
coln, his opponent, challenged him to a discussion of the 
issues of the day and the two met in a series of debates which 



288 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

proved to be the most important in American history. 
Under the keen questioning of Lincoln, Douglas was forced 
to choose between the doctrine of the Dred Scott decision 




One of the Lincoln-Douglas Debates 



and " squatter sovereignty," which he had upheld for many 
years. If the Supreme Court was right. Congress must 
protect slavery in the territories. How then, Lincoln 
asked, can the settlers lawfully abolish slavery in any 
territory ? The question was an awkward one for Douglas 



THE CONTEST OVER SLAVERY 289 

to answer. If he failed to support the Dred Scott decision, 
he would lose Southern support for the presidency, towards 
which his thoughts had turned. If he gave up squatter 
sovereignty, which was strongly held in Illinois, he would 
likely fail of election to the Senate. In his reply Douglas 
declared that in spite of the Court's decision, the people 
of a territory could by " unfriendly legislation " make 
slavery impossible. If that were so, the Dred Scott decision 
was a barren victory for the South, and the Southern leaders 
were quick to denounce Douglas as a " demagogue who prom- 
ised one thing in Congress and another in Illinois." 
Besides widening the breach in the Democratic ranks, the 
debate brought Abraham Lincoln to the notice of the 
country. 

317. "An Irrepressible Conflict." — The dozen years of 
impassioned debate over the slavery question, begun with 
the Wilmot Proviso, had led the sections to a point where 
each feared and mistrusted the purposes of the other. 
The bonds that made for unity were weakening; the great 
Protestant denominations. Baptists, Methodists, and Pres- 
byterians, were separating into northern and southern 
groups, a division of sentiment that half a century has not 
healed. The Whig Party almost ceased to exist, and the 
other great political bond of union, the Democratic 
Party, was threatened with disruption. Under these cir- 
cumstances it is not to be wondered that many regarded 
a crisis as near. Lincoln, beginning his campaign against 
Douglas, put the thought of many in his famous declara- 
tion : " ' A house divided against itself cannot stand.' I 
believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave 
and half free." And Senator Seward of New York a few 
months later clothed the same thought in a striking phrase 



290 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 



when he said : " It is an irrepressible conflict between oppos- 
ing and enduring forces, and it means that the United States 
must and will, sooner or later, become entirely a slave-hold- 
ing nation or entirely a free-labor nation." Though Lincoln 
and Seward in these speeches were far ahead of public 
opinion in the North, words of this kind from two well- 
known Republican leaders deepened the conviction of the 
South that the Republican Party aimed at the abolition of 
slavery. 

318. John Brown's Raid (1859). — ^ Amid the growing 
bitterness of the slavery discussion, the country was startled. 






H 










Harper's Ferry 



in the fall of 1859, by an attempt to start a slave insurrection 
in Virginia. John Brown, who had already taken part in 
the bloody work in Kansas, undertook to lead the insurrection 
and on October 16, to secure arms for his project, seized the 
United States Arsenal at Harper's Ferry on the Potomac, 



THE CONTEST OVER SLAVERY 291 

about fifty miles above Washington. Virginia militia and 
United States troops soon overpowered Brown and killed a 
number of his followers, including two of his sons. The 
widespread sympathy expressed in the North when he was 
executed six weeks later confirmed the South in its belief 
that no compromise was possible. The governor of Virginia 
laid in a supply of guns and asked his state to strengthen its 
militia. His example was followed by the authorities in 
other Southern states. 

319. The Election of Lincoln. — As the contest for the 
presidency came on in i860, the country was in a very bad 
temper. In the preceding winter Crawford, a representative 
from Georgia, had told Congress that it was folly to talk 
of a compromise on slavery. " I have this to say," he 
exclaimed, " and I speak the sentiment of every Democrat 
on this floor from the state of Georgia : We will never sub- 
mit to the inauguration of a black Republican president." 

The Republicans, in their convention at Chicago, failing to 
agree upon any of the more prominent leaders of the party, 
turned to Abraham Lincoln as their candidate. The South- 
ern Democrats would not follow Douglas and the party split 
into two factions : the Southerners nominated John C. 
Breckenridge of Kentucky, while the Northern Democrats 
remained loyal to Douglas. A fourth party, the Con- 
stitutional Unionists, made up of old-time Whigs and Know- 
nothings, named John Bell of Tennessee for the presidency. 

With disunion in the Democratic ranks, Lincoln carried 
every Northern state with the exception of three votes 
in New Jersey, and was elected. 

320. Secession of South Carolina. — South Carolina was 
the first state to make good the threat that the South 
would not remain in the Union with a Republican President. 



292 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

December 20 a South Carolina convention declared that 
the union " between this state and the other states of 
North America is dissolved, and that the state of South 
Carolina has resumed her place among the nations of the 
world." In the next six weeks Georgia, Florida, Mississippi, 
Alabama, Louisiana, and Texas followed the example of 
South Carolina. 

321. The Confederacy Established. — Early in February, 
1 861, delegates from the seceded states, with the exception 
of Texas, met at Montgomery, Alabama, and drew up a 
Constitution for " the Confederate States of America." 
Jefferson Davis of Mississippi was elected President, and 
Alexander Stephens of Georgia, Vice-President. 





Vocabulary 




erroneous 


rigorous 


secession 


irrepressible 


schism 


squatter 



renegade 

Questions 

I. How did the Mexican War help to bring on the crisis of 1850? 
2. Explain the doctrine of squatter sovereignty. 3. What provisions of 
Clay's compromise were concessions to the slave interests ? 4. Give the 
circumstances which finally led to the acceptance of the compromise. 
5. Have you read U7icle Tom's Cabin? 6. How was the Kansas- 
Nebraska Act a violation of the Missouri Compromise ? 7. Give the 
date and purpose of the organization of the Republican Party. 8. What 
attitude does Lincoln express toward the Dred Scott decision ? 9. What 
was the important national result of the Douglas-Lincoln debates in 
Illinois? 10. Why was the raid of John Brown significant? 11. Why 
was the election of Lincoln the signal for secession among the Southern 
States ? 



CHAPTER XX 
THE CIVIL WAR 

322. Efforts at Compromise. — President Buchanan took 
no active measures to prevent secession. It was his view 
that a state had no constitutional right to secede but, on 
the other hand, that the Federal government had no power 
to prevent secession. Perhaps most persons in the North 
held similar views. Horace Greeley, one of the most power- 
ful of the anti-slavery leaders, said in his paper, the New 
York Tribune : "The South has as good a right to secede 
from the Union as the colonies had to secede from Great 
Britain." It seemed for a time as if secession might be 
accomplished peaceably. 

Before war came, efforts were made to patch up the differ- 
ences between the sections. At the request of Virginia, a 
Peace Convention at which delegates were present from 
twenty-one states sat during February in Washington, 
while the leaders of secession were organizing their govern- 
ment at Montgomery. In Congress proposals were made 
to yield to the demands of the South. 

323. Lincoln Becomes President. — While these attempts 
to prevent disunion were going on, Lincoln arrived in 
Washington and on March 4, 1861, took the oath of office 
as President. Few persons had any confidence in his 
ability to guide the nation wisely in the crisis which had 

293 



294 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 



arisen. By many he was looked upon as a country lawyer, 
whom political accident had raised to high position. His 
homely western ways were derided in the East, and New 
York society was greatly disturbed when he appeared in a 
theater in that city wearing black gloves. The difficulties 
which now faced him served to disclose to the nation the 
great qualities which he possessed. 

In his inaugural address the President announced that 
he had neither the legal authority nor the desire to inter- 
fere with slavery in the states where it 
existed. With regard to secession he 
declared that no state, " on its own mere 
motion, can lawfully get out of the 
Union," and he would therefore be com- 
pelled to take care " that the laws of the 
Union shall be faithfully executed in all 
the states." There need be no blood- 
shed, he pointed out, unless it be forced 
upon the national government. He in- 
tended to use the power given him as 
President " to hold, occupy, and possess 
the property and places belonging to the government, and 
collect the duties and imposts ; but beyond what may be 
necessary for these objects there will be no invasion, no 
using of force against the people anywhere." 

" In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and 
not in mine," Lincoln told the South, " is the momentous 
issue of civil war." 

324. The Fall of Fort Sumter and Lincoln's Call to Arms. 
— The South was unwilling to listen to Lincoln's words of 
peace. Jefferson Davis, the President of the Confederacy, 
had already predicted that there would be a long war, and, 




Abraham Lincoln 



THE CIVIL WAR 



295 



within a few days after Lincoln's inauguration, Davis and 
his advisers were busily making provision for an army of 
100,000 men. The states of the 
Confederacy, as they seceded, took 
possession wherever they could of the 
Federal forts and arsenals within their 
borders ; and when Lincoln took up 
the duties of his office, only a few 
posts in the seceded region remained 
in possession of the United States 
Government. The most important of 
these was Fort Sumter in Charleston / 
harbor, held by a small garrison under 
the command of Major Robert Ander- 
son. In accordance with the policy laid down in his in- 
augural address, President Lincoln determined to hold Fort 
Sumter and early in April dispatched supplies for the garri- 
son. The Confederate Government, learning of his inten- 




Jefferson Davis 




The Attack, on Fort Sumter 



296 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

tion, demanded the surrender of the place. Major Anderson 
offered to give up the fort in three days if he did not receive 
provisions ; but the Confederates refused to wait and after 
a vigorous bombardment compelled him to surrender, on 
April 14, when much of the fort had been demolished. 

The next day President Lincoln called out the militia of 
the various states to the number of 75,000 men. The North 
responded with enthusiasm and within ten weeks over 300,000 
men were in camp. By the end of the year the number had 
risen to 660,000. 

The attack on Fort Sumter was a fatal mistake on the 
part of the Confederacy. Lowell, writing in the summer 
of 1861, declared that the first gun at Sumter " brought the 
free states to their feet as one man." 

325. Other States Secede. — In the South, also, en- 
thusiasm ran high ; and, before the end of June, a second 
group of states, North Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee, and 
Arkansas, seceded from the Union. Three other slave 
states, Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri, were divided 
in sentiment and probably were prevented from seceding 
by the swift approach of Union armies. 

The western counties of Virginia, in which there was 
strong Union sentiment, refused to secede and set up a 
government of their own. The Federal authorities sup- 
ported this movement and in 1863 received West Virginia 
into the Union. 

326. Comparison of the Opposing Forces. — Twenty-two 
states and part of another remained in the Union to bear 
the burden of war against the eleven states of the Con- 
federacy. Of the thirty-one and a half million people in 
the country the Confederacy had fewer than nine million, 
while the Union held nearly twenty-three million. The 



THE CIVIL WAR 297 

contest was made more unequal from a military stand- 
point by the fact that the population of the Confederacy 
included over three and a half million negroes. The Union 
had therefore of white men available for military service 
more than four times as many as the Confederacy. 

Another important advantage of the North was found 
in its manufactures. It possessed the material equipment 
and mechanical skill to supply itself with the munitions of 
war. The South, given over chiefly to the raising of cotton, 
lacked both factories and skilled workers at the beginning 
of the struggle. This lack was seen especially in the build- 
ing of ships, for which the South was largely dependent 
upon foreign yards. Had the Confederacy been able to 
create a navy and dispute the control of the sea, it might 
have continued to sell its great cotton crop abroad and 
thus secure money and other badly needed resources. As 
it was, the enthusiasm of the Southern people and their 
high military capacity could not overcome the enormous 
advantages of the North in men and material wealth. 

327. The Eastern Field of War. — Richmond, which in 
June, 1 861, became the capital of the Confederate States, 
lies on the James River, about one hundred miles south of 
Washington on the Potomac. The region between the 
two capitals is hemmed in on the east by Chesapeake Bay 
and on the west by the Blue Ridge Mountains. Because 
of the anxiety of each side to protect its own capital and 
threaten that of the enemy, there was fighting in this region 
from the beginning to the end of the war. 

The protection of Washington was among the first cares 
of President Lincoln when he called for soldiers. It was 
feared that the Confederate troops who had attacked Fort 
Sumter would be hastened to Virginia to threaten the 



298 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

capital ; and besides, in the early months of the war, there 
was danger that Maryland, which incloses the District of 
Columbia on three sides, would secede and cut off the capi- 
tal from the North. The Sixth Massachusetts regiment 
reached Washington April 19, after some of its companies 
had fought their way through a secessionist mob at Balti- 
more. Governor Andrew of Massachusetts, with excellent 
foresight, had been drilling the state militia for several 
months and was able to put 5000 troops at the President's 
disposal at once. A few days later the Sixty-ninth New 
York Regiment, composed of Irishmen, arrived. It is 
worthy of note that immigrants volunteered in large num- 
bers, the Irish from the eastern cities and the Germans 
from the west. 

328. The Battle of Bull Run. — Washington soon be- 
came a great camp and the immediate danger of attack 
passed. Congress was called m special session, July 4, and 
authorized the enrollment of 500,000 men for the duration 
of the war. The cry of " On to Richmond " was heard, 
and much impatience was aroused at the inactivity of the 
Federal forces. Major-General Winfield Scott, hero of 
two wars, in nominal command of the troops, was too old 
for active service ; and to General Irvin McDowell was left 
the task of turning the raw recruits around Washington into 
an efficient army. Both Scott and McDowell wanted time 
to drill their soldiers, but the public demanded action. 
Towards the middle of July plans were made for an attack 
on the Confederate forces which, under the command of 
General Beauregard, lay about thirty-five miles from 
Washington between Manassas Junction and Bull Run, a 
small tributary of the Potomac. 

On the morning of July 21 the Union forces crossed 



THE CIVIL WAR 



299 







Pi 



< 



300 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

Bull Run and offered battle to the enemy. The opposing 
forces were fairly equal in point of numbers and both were 
largely composed of green, inexperienced troops. In the 
early fighting the Union army had the advantage and 
would have held the field but for the splendid stand of a 
Confederate brigade, led by the man who that day won 
the title of " Stonewall Jackson." In the middle of the 
afternoon timely reenforcements reached the Confederate 
ranks and turned defeat into victory. The retreat of the 
Union army became a panic. Throughout the night a 
disorganized mob of soldiers made its way back to the 
defenses of Washington. 

329. McClellan Placed in Command. — Bull Run gave 
confidence to the South ; and, at the same time, it showed 
the North how serious was the task in which it was engaged. 
For Lincoln the chief problem was to find an efficient leader; 
and on the day after Bull Run he summoned to Washington 
General George B. McClellan, who was in command of 
troops on the Ohio, and who had been successful in a number 
of minor engagements in western Virginia. McClellan, a 
graduate of West Point, had seen service in the Mexican 
War and had been sent abroad in 1855 to observe the armies 
of Europe in action during the Crimean War. He went 
to work with great energy to drill and equip " the Army of 
the Potomac." By November, when he succeeded to the 
chief command through the retirement of General Scott, 
he had under him a splendid fighting force of 100,000 men. 
Though he was an excellent organizer and won the con- 
fidence of his troops to a remarkable degree, McClellan 
seems to have been too timid to be a successful soldier. 
The trouble with him was, said General Sheridan, that he 
" never went out to lick anybody, but always thought first 



THE CIVIL WAR 301 

of keeping from getting licked." The end of the year 
came with McClellan still unwilling to move against the 
enemy. 

The Work of the Navy 

330. The Blockade of the Southern Ports. — Five days 
after the fall of Fort Sumter President Lincoln had issued a 
proclamation declaring a blockade of the ports of the seced- 
ing states, and steps were at once taken to make the blockade 
effective. To control the coastline of the Confederacy, 
which was over 3000 miles in length and contained nearly 
two hundred harbors, the United States had fewer than a 
hundred ships. Fully one half of these were sailing vessels 
and many were in foreign waters. But the navy yards were 
set to work on new ships, and merchant vessels were bought 
and transformed into fighting craft, so that in a few months 
the blockade became a reality. Exports of cotton from 
the South, which in i860 amounted to nearly ^200,000,000, 
fell in 1862 to ^4,000,000. 

331. The Trent Affair. — The activity of the new navy 
came near involving the country m war with Great Britain. 
Many influential Englishmen favored the Southern cause ; 
and the Confederacy had hopes of securing from Great 
Britain recognition as an independent nation and even 
interference in the war on the Southern side. Its hopes 
were based on England's dependence on the South for its 
supply of raw cotton, a failure of which would injure im- 
portant English business interests and threaten thousands 
of workmen with starvation. 

To plead the cause of the Confederacy, James Mason was 
appointed commissioner to England, and with him went 
John Slidell to represent Confederate interests at the court 



302 



HISTORY OF, THE UNITED STATES 



of Emperor Napoleon III in Paris. Running through the 
blockade with safety, the commissioners reached Havana, 
where they took passage for England in the British mail 
steamship Trent. On November 8, the day after leaving 
Havana, the Trent was stopped by an American gunboat 
commanded by Captain Wilkes, who, despite the protests of 
the British captain, forcibly removed Mason and Slidell. 

There was much anti-British feeling in America, and 
when the news of the arrest of the commissioners became 
known, there was great rejoicing throughout the North. 
The British government at once demanded the liberation 
of Mason and Slidell and an apology for their arrest ; at 
the same time it made active naval preparations, sent eight 
thousand troops to Canada, and took other warlike steps. 
War seemed dangerously near when Lincoln announced 
that Captain Wilkes had acted without instructions and 
released the commissioners. 

The country recognized that the seizure of Mason and 
SHdell was illegal, but it resented the over-hasty manner 
in which Great Britain had threatened war. The incident 
did much to stir up ill-feeling between the two countries, 
and another difficulty soon arose to make matters worse. 
In spite of the protests of Charles Francis Adams, the 
American Minister in London, the British authorities per- 
mitted the Alabama, and other vessels of war built in 
England for the Confederacy, to set sail in the summer 
of 1862 upon a career of destruction of Northern commerce. 
It was not until 1863, when Mr. Adams talked of war, that 
the British authorities put a stop to the use of their ports as 
Confederate naval bases. 

To aid in keeping the friendship of foreign nations Presi- 
dent Lincoln sent special representatives to Europe ; promi- 



THE CIVIL WAR 



303 



nent among them were Thurlow Weed, who was sent to 
England, and Archbishop Hughes, who visited France and 
other European countries. 

332. Ironclad Battleships Are Built. — In the early 
days of March, 1862, the Federal blockade of the Southern 
ports was suddenly threatened by the appearance of a new 
kind of fighting craft. When the Federal officers withdrew 




Battle Between the Monitor and the Merrimac 



from the Norfolk navy yard in April, 1861, they sank several 
ships to prevent them from falling into the enemy's hands. 
The Confederates raised one of these — the Merrimac — 
equipped it with iron armor, and renamed it the Firginia. 
On March 8 the Merrimac steamed out of Norfolk harbor 
and attacked the Federal fleet stationed in Hampton Roads. 
In a few hours the ironclad put out of action five of the 
finest ships of the Federal navy and withdrew from the 
contest only when the tide was running low and she was 



304 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

in danger of grounding. News of the disaster frightened 
the authorities at Washington. They feared that the 
Merrimac might come up the Potomac and destroy the 
capital. There was nothing to prevent it, in the opinion 
of Stanton, Secretary of War, from destroying the 
blockade, and even carrying war to every seaport of the 
North. 

The Navy Department had turned its attention to the 
building of ironclads in the preceding October, and in a 
hundred days had constructed the Monitor, an armored 
vessel of 900 tons. Its designer, John Ericsson, had placed 
the deck just above the water's surface and had surmounted 
it with a revolving turret carrymg two ii-inch guns. This 
strange craft, which was likened to "a cheese box on a raft," 
arrived durmg the night in Hampton Roads and the next 
day met the victorious Merrimac in a battle. Neither of 
the ironclads could greatly injure the other; but the Merri- 
mac gave up the attempt to raise the blockade, and a few 
weeks later was destroyed to prevent her falling into McClel- 
lan's hands. 

333. The Capture of New Orleans Strengthens the Block- 
ade. — The Federal Navy continued its vigorous efforts to 
close the Southern ports to foreign commerce. By mid- 
summer, 1862, it controlled all the Atlantic ports of the 
Confederacy except Wilmington, North Carolina, and 
Charleston. It turned its attention to the Gulf ports also ; 
and on April 25 took possession of New Orleans after 
Admiral Farragut, with great daring, had run his ships 
past the forts on the Mississippi below the city. New 
Orleans received a Federal garrison which retained control 
till the war was over. The ports which were not captured 
were closely guarded ; the efficiency of the Federal Navy 



THE CIVIL WAR 



305 



in preventing the Confederacy from trading with the out- 
side world was one of the chief causes of the defeat of the 
South. 

The War in the East in 1862 

334. McClellan's Peninsular Campaign. — General Mc- 
Clellan, who, as we have seen, insisted on drilling diligently 

the Army of the Poto- 
mac, was ready to 
move in the spring of 
1862. His object was 




the capture of Richmond. He 

formed the excellent plan of 

moving his troops by water to 

Fortress Monroe and proceeding 

up the peninsula between the 

James and the York rivers. By The Peninsular Campaign 

approaching Richmond from this 

side he would be able to get supplies readily by water and 

would have the cooperation of the fleet, which was able to 

ascend either river. 

McClellan began his advance up the York early in April 
and by the middle of May was within ten miles of Richmond. 
Reenforcements, which he expected to march south from 



3o6 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 




u~ 



General Joseph E. Johnston 



Washington, were prevented from joining him by the activity 
of Stonewall Jackson. That daring leader, after defeating 
a Federal force May 25 at Winchester in the Shenandoah 

Valley, suddenly appeared on the 
Potomac at the mouth of the 
Shenandoah about fifty miles above 
Washington. The capital appeared 
to be in danger, so the reenforce- 
ments intended for McClellan were 
retained for its protection. McClel- 
lan, however, still greatly outnum- 
bered his opponent. General Joseph 
E. Johnston. An indecisive engage- 
ment was fought at Fair Oaks, May 
31, during which Johnston was se- 
verely wounded, and the command was given over to General 
Robert E. Lee, the greatest of the Confederate soldiers. 

Nearly a month later, June 26, Lee made a determined 
assault on the Federal right wing. In two days of fighting 
he forced it from its position and cut off McClellan's com- 
munications with his base of supplies on the York. Instead 
of retreating down the peninsula as Lee expected, McClellan 
moved southward to establish a new base on the James. 
Lee followed him, but was held off in the hard fighting of 
June 29 and 30 ; and on July i was defeated with heavy 
loss at Malvern Hill, on the bank of the James. In the 
Seven Days' Battles, June 26 to July i, McClellan lost 
nearly 16,000 men and Lee over 20,000. The Union com- 
mander was still desirous of pushing on to Richmond, which 
was only twenty miles away, but public opinion in the 
North forced the government to recall him and to abandon 
his plan of campaign. 



THE CIVIL WAR 307 

335. The Second Battle of Bull Run. — Command of 
the troops about Washington was now given to General 
Pope, who, earlier in the year, had won some successes 
on the Mississippi. In July he moved southward across 
the Rappahannock and threatened to cut the railroad 
which served Richmond from the northwest. Lee at once 
turned his attention to the new danger, first to save the 
railroad and, secondly, to crush Pope before McClellan's 
troops could be brought from the Peninsula to join him. 
Pope fell back before the Confederate advance, but made 
a stand near the old Bull Run battlefield. Here he was 
attacked by Lee (August 29 and 30) and forced from the 
field with heavy losses. He retreated to the defenses of 
Washington, and early in September McClellan succeeded 
him in command of the army. 

336. The Battle of Antietam. — After defeating Pope, Lee 
decided to invade Maryland, where he hoped to gain recruits 
for his army. At the same time he thought that a success- 
ful invasion of Federal territory would make a favorable 
impression on English and French opinion, and that it 
might lead to a recognition of the Confederacy as an inde- 
pendent power. The first week of September he crossed 
the Potomac about twenty-five miles above Washington, 
but in a few days found it necessary to send Stonewall 
Jackson to seize Harper's Ferry and open a way for supphes 
through the Shenandoah Valley. McClellan heard of the 
division of the enemy's army and undertook to prevent 
Lee and Jackson from reuniting their forces. But, as 
usual, he moved very leisurely, and Lee was able to take 
up a strong position west of Antietam Creek before McClel- 
lan arrived on September 15. The Union commander 
delayed his attack until the 17th, thus giving Jackson 



3o8 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 



time to return. In the fierce fighting of that day, the 
bloodiest of the whole war, Lee lost ii,ooo men, but held 
his ground. McClellan's loss was slightly greater, but on 
account of his superior numbers he could better afford it. 
Neither side gained a decisive victory. 

Two days after Antietam, Lee withdrew to Virginia, the 
over-cautious McClellan making no effort to hinder his 
crossing of the Potomac. The conduct of the campaign 
had again exhibited McClellan's lack of vigor, and early 
in November he was removed from command and General 
Burnside was given his place. 

337. The Battle of Fredericksburg. — Burnside at once 
undertook to meet the demand which now arose for a new 
advance on Richmond. Instead of following the route taken 
by Pope earlier in the year and by McDowell the year 
before, he determined to take a more easterly route along the 
railroad which ran from the Potomac to Richmond by 

way of Fredericksburg. He was 
delayed in crossing the Rappahan- 
nock at Fredericksburg, thus per- 
mitting Lee to seize Marye's Heights 
and other hills about a mile and a 
half south of that town. Here the 
Confederate infantry intrenched 
itself behind a stone wall, while 
artillery was so placed as to domi- 
nate the whole plain over which the 
Union advance would have to be 
made. In spite of these obstacles 
Burnside, on December 13, ordered 
the heights to be stormed. It was a hopeless task, but he 
did not change his purpose until six assaults had been made 




General Thomas Francis 
Meagher 



THE CIVIL WAR 309 

and 8000 of his men lay dead before the Confederate lines. 
The heaviest loss fell upon the Irish brigade, commanded 
by Thomas Francis Meagher, which was almost wiped out 
of existence. Two days later Burnside withdrew his beaten 
army to the north bank of the Rappahannock, and the 
fighting in the eastern field of war was at an end for the 
year (1862). Early in the following year Burnside was 
relieved of his command and General Hooker succeeded 
him. 

338. The Emancipation Proclamation. — September 23, a 
week after Antietam, Lincoln announced his intention to 
declare the slaves free in every state which would be in 
rebellion on January i, 1863. The South paid no heed 
to his warning and on the day appointed, the President, as 
commander-in-chief of the military forces of the United 
States, proclaimed slavery abohshed in the Confederacy, 
except in Tennessee and certain other regions held by the 
Federal troops. The proclamation pleased the growing 
party of abolitionists in the North, and had a good eflPect 
on opinion in Europe, where it was now seen that a Northern 
victory meant the destruction of slavery. On the other 
hand, the proclamation freed no slaves at the time, for it 
applied only to those regions still under Confederate control. 

The War in the West 

339. Grant in Tennessee. — The first object of the 
Federal arms in the West, to save Kentucky and Missouri 
for the Union, was accomplished in January, 1862. By 
that time the Confederates had been driven out of Missouri 
and held only a small portion of Kentucky, their line ex- 
tending from the Mississippi at Columbus, Kentucky, 
eastward to Fort Henry on the Tennessee and Fort Donel- 



3IO HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

son on the Cumberland, thence northeast through Bowling 
Green. 

The rivers of the West offered the readiest means of 
invading the Confederacy. For this reason General Grant, 
who was in command of the Federal troops along the lower 
Ohio, moved up the Tennessee with 17,000 men and a 
number of gunboats, and on February 6 took Fort Henry. 
The garrison, however, had fled to Fort Donelson, eleven 

miles away, whither Grant immedi- 
ately followed with his army, while 
the gunboats went back to the Ohio 
and ascended the Cumberland to 
cooperate with him. On February 
16 Fort Donelson was taken and 
with it about 15,000 men. 

The success of Grant endangered 
the position of General Albert Sidney 
Johnston, who commanded the Con- 
General Ulysses S. Grant federate forces at Bowhng Green, 

and the Southern leader retreated 
hurriedly to Corinth, Mississippi. His position at this 
point, on the railroad from Memphis to Chattanooga, per- 
mitted him to gather supplies and reenforcements. Grant 
continued his movement up the Tennessee and by the 
middle of March his main force reached Pittsburg Landing, 
less than twenty-five miles from Corinth. 

Grant underestimated the energy of his opponent and 
carelessly disposed his troops along the river for a distance 
of eight miles. Early in the morning of April 6, the Con- 
federates fell upon the Union troops and, after a hard day's 
fight, forced them to seek protection under the fire of their 
gunboats. Much of the day's conflict centered about 




THE CIVIL WAR 311 

Shiloh Church, and on this account it is often called the 
battle of Shiloh. Grant ordered up reenforcements which 
Buell had brought from Kentucky, and the next morning 
renewed the contest, compelling the enemy to withdraw 
to Corinth. The Union army now received additions which 
brought its strength up to 100,000 men. In the face of this 
great force Corinth had to be abandoned at the end of May. 

The Union advance across Tennessee placed a number 
of Confederate posts on the Mississippi in grave danger. 
Columbus was given up without a struggle, and New Madrid 
and Island No. 10 surrendered with about 7000 prisoners. 
Memphis fell June 6, and, as New Orleans had been taken 
in April, the only place of great importance on the Missis- 
sippi left to the Confederates was Vicksburg. 

340. The Confederates Invade Kentucky. — To offset 
their losses in western Tennessee and on the Mississippi, 
the Confederates prepared to invade Kentucky, where they 
hoped to find a friendly population and secure recruits for 
their army. General Bragg was given command of 35,000 
men, and on August 28 moved north from Chattanooga. 
General Buell was directed to stop Bragg's advance. The 
opposing forces met at Perryville in central Kentucky, 
October 8. Buell, with superior numbers, held the field and 
Bragg had to retire southward. 

Buell failed to follow up his victory as vigorously as his 
superiors wished and was superseded by Rosecrans. On 
the last day of the year the new commander attacked 
Bragg in a furious battle near Murfreesboro. The struggle 
went against him, but he refused to retreat. Two days 
later when Bragg renewed the fight, Rosecrans continued 
to hold his ground and the Confederates withdrew once 
more to Chattanooga. 



312 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

341. The Capture of Vicksburg. — During the winter of 
1862-1863, Grant turned his attention to the capture of 
Vicksburg, the strongest post held by the Confederates on 
the Mississippi and a place of great importance. As long 
as Vicksburg remained in their hands, the Confederates 
could secure large supplies of food from the West and other 
necessaries, which came from abroad by way of Mexico. 

In approaching Vicksburg from the north the Union forces 
soon found that they could not take the place from that 
side. Grant therefore decided to move below the city 
and attack from that quarter. The army marched down 
the west bank of the Mississippi, and some miles below the 
city the troops were ferried across the river by the supply 
boats which had successfully run past the Vicksburg batteries 
at night. By May i, 1863, Grant was ready with 43,000 
men to make his advance on the Confederate stronghold. 
He now learned that General Joseph E. Johnston was 
approaching from the east with 15,000 men, intending to 
join General Pemberton, who had 40,000 men defending 
Vicksburg. 

Grant boldly placed himself between the two Confederate 
armies and prevented their union. By May 18 he had 
forced Pemberton to seek cover within the fortifications of 
Vicksburg. Reenforcements soon arrived from the North, 
and the Union army settled down to a siege in which hunger 
was fighting powerfully on their side. The Confederate 
authorities could send no aid to Pemberton, who was com- 
pelled by a lack of provisions to surrender Vicksburg (July 
4). Within a few days the Mississippi throughout its 
course was in Union hands. Grant's conduct of the cam- 
paign won him high praise, and he was soon given command 
of all the Federal armies of the West. 



THE CIVIL WAR 



313 




< 



314 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

342. The Confederates Driven from Tennessee. — We 

have seen that after the battle of Murfreesboro, General 
Bragg withdrew to Chattanooga. Rosecrans at the same 
time took up a position at Nashville, both commanders 
remaining inactive during the early months of 1S63. But 
when Grant's success was assured at Vicksburg, Rosecrans 
set out to drive Bragg from Chattanooga. He approached 
the city from the south, to the surprise of Bragg, whose 
railroad communication with Atlanta was threatened by 
the unexpected movement. The Confederate leader left 
the city and took a stand on Chickamauga Creek twelve 
miles away, leaving the Union army between him and 
Chattanooga. The battle of Chickamauga raged through- 
out September 19 and 20. On the second day the Union 
line was badly shattered ; and, but for the heroic stand 
of General Thomas, the retreat into Chattanooga would 
have been a complete disaster. Thomas won the title of 
" the Rock of Chickamauga " and was promoted to the 
command of the army in place of Rosecrans. 

Bragg followed up his victory by fortifying Missionary 
Ridge and Lookout Mountain, which commanded the only 
railroad by which the Union army in Chattanooga could 
get supplies. Provisions now had to be carried by wagon 
over sixty miles of poor roads, and danger of starvation 
appeared. Grant arrived in October to take charge of 
operations. Hooker brought 16,000 reenforcements from 
Virginia and Sherman added more than that number from 
Vicksburg. November 24 Grant began a vigorous assault 
of Bragg's position, and in " the battle above the clouds " 
Lookout Mountain was taken. The next day, in one of the 
most remarkable charges of the war, the Confederate 
batteries on Missionary Ridge were taken by Union troops, 



THE CIVIL WAR 



315 



who had chmbed the heights without orders and even against 

the orders of their officers. Bragg now withdrew from 

Tennessee and went into winter quarters at Dalton, Georgia. 

343. Sherman Takes Atlanta (September, 1864). — In the 




spring of 1864, Grant, with the title of Lieutenant-General, 
was placed in command, under the President, of all the Union 
armies. He assumed direction of military affairs in Vir- 
ginia, leaving Sherman in command at Chattanooga with 



3i6 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 



nearly 100,000 men to oppose the Confederate forces of 
75,000 men under Joseph E. Johnston, who had succeeded 
Bragg. Sherman was an aggressive fighter and proposed to 
take Atlanta, which lay 1 10 miles south and east of Chat- 
tanooga, with which it was connected by a line of railroad. 
Atlanta was the chief center in the South for the manufac- 
ture of arms and other war material, and its capture would 
be a severe loss to the Confederacy. 

Sherman, beginning his advance early in May, marched 
past the enemy at Dalton, Georgia, threatened to cut the 

railroad in his rear, and compelled 
him to fall back. Similar tactics, 
frequently repeated, brought Sher- 
man within six miles of Atlanta on 
July 9. Several minor engagements 
had taken place, the most impor- 
tant that at Kenesaw Mountain, 
which cost Sherman 3000 men and 
his opponent 800. Altogether the 
Federal loss in the two months' 
campaign was nearly 17,000 as 
against 14,500 for the Confeder- 
ates. 
Public opinion in the South demanded the removal of 
Johnston from his command, and on July 17 the task of 
opposing Sherman was given into the hands of General 
J. B. Hood. Before the end of the month three battles were 
fought, in which each side lost about 10,000 men. Unable 
to take Atlanta by assault, Sherman spent the month of 
August in an attempt to surround it and reduce it by a siege. 
Before he could complete his attempt, Hood left the city, 
which the Union forces entered on September 3. 




General Sherman 



THE CIVIL WAR 



317 



344. The Defeat of Hood at Nashville. — The Confeder- 
ate commander now tried to make Sherman fall back by 
threatening the railroad behind him, as Sherman had done 
with Johnston. The superior resources of the North pre- 
vented the success of Hood's plan, for a new army of more 
than 50,000 men under Thomas, " the Rock of Chicka- 
mauga," was quickly collected at Nashvdle. When Hood 
appeared before that city, his numbers had been reduced 
to 23,000, and in two days' fighting, December 15 and 16, 
his strength was broken and fewer than 15,000 of his men 
escaped from the field. This defeat shattered the power of 
the Confederacy in the West. 

345. Sherman's March to the Sea. — Sherman, mean- 
whde, had secured from Grant permission to march across 



.KEN p-;y-C~-t^_Y_^^.'^' :^- ^^ ' ' R G INI A A 

Jf^vT.E N N E S VE^r^ /■"■ . \ V '-''-^'' V:^ A ^\ 

/-NORTH C \AN^ O L I N a 




Sherman's March to thk Sea 



Georgia to the sea. With 60,000 seasoned veterans he set 
out from Atlanta, November 15. His troops swept over a 
region sixty miles in width and three hundred sixty miles 



3i8 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 



in length, meeting with no serious opposition and show- 
ing, as Sherman had intended, how near to exhaustion 
the Confederacy had' come. The soldiers not only hved 
upon the country, but destroyed an enormous amount of 
property which was of no use to them. The " waste and 
destruction " was estimated by Sherman himself at 
^80,000,000. His army appeared before Savannah, De- 
cember 10, and ten days later entered the city, where it 
remained until February i, 1865. 

Gettysburg and the End of the War 

346. The Battle of Chancellors villa. — We must now 
turn to the Virginian field of war, where the genius of Lee 

continued, in the face of superior 
numbers, to uphold the Confederate 
cause. As has already been noted, 
Burnside was relieved of his command 
after the disaster at Fredericksburg 
and Hooker was given his place. In 
the early months of 1863, the strength 
of the Union army in Virginia was 
brought up to 130,000, while Lee, on 
the other side of the Rappahannock, 
had not quite half that number. 
Toward the end of April, Hooker got 
in motion and crossed the Rappahannock, with the bulk of 
his army. Though greatly outnumbered, Lee opposed his 
advance at Chancellorsville, about nine miles above Freder- 
icksburg, and in a series of battles. May 2, 3, and 4, drove 
Hooker back across the river. It was a splendid victory 
but dearly bought, for on the night of the first day's battle 
Stonewall Jackson was shot down in the darkness by his 




Stonewall Jackson 



THE CIVIL WAR 



319 



own sentinels and died a week later. He was one of the 
great soldiers produced by the war, and the South could ill 
afford to lose him. 

347. Gettysburg, " the High Tide of the Confederacy." — 
After his striking success at Chancellorsville, Lee decided to 
invade the North. Many 
Northerners were tiring of 
the struggle, and the 
Southern leader hoped by 
a decisive blow to secure 
favorable terms of peace. 
Moreover, he had been so 
successful that he under- 
estimated the fighting 
strength of the North. 

Lee moved north by way 
of the Shenandoah Valley 
and on June 15 began cross- 
ing the Potomac ; before 
the end of the month his 
main force arrived at Cham- 
bersburg, Pennsylvania, and 
his van had pushed north- 
ward to capture Harrisburg. 
While at Chambersburg, ' 

Lee learned that he was pursued by the Union forces under 
General Meade, successor to Hooker, who had resigned be- 
cause he could not get on well with the authorities in the 
War Department. The Confederates at once gave up the 
attempt on Harrisburg and turned to give battle to Meade. 
The head of the Federal column was stopped Julv i about 
a mile northwest of Gettysburg ; its leader, Reynolds, was 




320 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 



killed and his men were pushed back through the town. 
Just south of Gettysburg rises Cemetery Ridge, which 
offered an excellent place to make a stand. General Han- 
cock, who succeeded Reynolds, threw up intrenchments on 
the ridge and placed his guns to resist the Confederate 
advance. General Meade, who came up during the night, 
agreed with Hancock's choice of a field and gathered his 
whole strength to defend the position. 

In the afternoon of July 2 Lee delivered a violent attack 
on the Federal left which was with great difficulty repulsed. 
Toward evenmg he struck at Meade's 
right, and only the coming of darkness 
saved the Federals from disaster. The 
next day the Confederate leader pre- 
pared to pierce the Union center and 
chose Pickett's division, 5400 men, to 
lead the charge. Pickett was to be 
supported by 10,000 men of General 
Hill's corps, with Stuart's famous 
cavalry to complete the work. After 
a terrific cannonade, in which over a 
hundred guns played on the Union 
position, Pickett's column started across the mile of open 
ground which lay between the opposing lines. The Union 
artillery could not stop the onward rush, even when at 600 
yards' distance they poured a hail of canister and shrapnel 
into the ranks of the Confederates, who received the fire 
of the first line of Federal infantry without wavering and 
stopped only when a second line was reached. By this 
time they were exposed to a murderous fire on their flanks, 
and in twenty minutes the shattered column began its 
retreat. Pickett's charge, it has been said, marked " the 




General Robert E. Lee 



THE CIVIL WAR 321 

high tide of the Confederacy." Never again was the South 
so close to victory. 

Lee withdrew to Virginia and mihtary activities of im- 
portance ceased for the remainder of the year in the eastern 
theater of war. 

348. Draft Riots. — While the North on July 4, 1863, 
was rejoicing over the victory at Gettysburg, news came 
of the fall of Vicksburg. This double gift of victory came 
at an opportune time. Many in the North had opposed 
the war from the beginning and thousands of others had 
grown discouraged as Lee outfought one Union leader after 
another. Volunteers practically ceased to go to the front 
by the end of 1862 and Congress had resorted to compulsory 
service. In the draft of men under this arrangement 
charges were made that members of the dominant political 
party were favored. This grievance, added to a sharp 
opposition to the war in many places, led to great difficulty 
in securing soldiers. In New York riots broke out against 
the draft in July, 1863, just after Gettysburg, and for a 
few days the city was given over to mob rule ; a thousand 
persons were killed or injured before order was restored. 

To promote enlistment the Federal government and 
state and county authorities offered bounties in addition 
to the regular pay of the soldiers. Toward the end of the 
war the bounties offered in New York for a soldier rose to 
nearly ^800. Many men made a practice of enlisting to 
claim the bounty and then deserting to enlist elsewhere 
under another name. The Confederates, likewise, found 
that volunteering failed early in the war, and in the South 
compulsory military service was enforced with an iron 
hand. Boys and old men were drafted into service until 
it was said that the army robbed the cradle and the grave. 

V 



322 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

349. Financing the War. — Besides finding difficulty in 
getting soldiers, the North was hard pressed to pay the 
growing cost of the war. To meet the country's needs a 
tax of 3 per cent was imposed on incomes over ^800 and 
later in the war the rate was raised to 4 per cent and even 
higher on larger incomes. Import duties were increased, 
while excises were levied on liquors and tobacco, and stamp 
taxes were imposed on various occupations and business 
transactions. But only a part of the cost of the war could 
be borne by taxation, and the government, from the be- 
ginning of the struggle, sought to borrow money by selling 
bonds. Congress exacted " forced loans " amounting to 
nearly half a bilHon dollars by issuing paper money, " green- 
backs," as the notes were called, which the people were 
compelled to accept, but which bore no interest. So much 
of this money was issued that throughout the later years 
of the war a paper dollar was worth only from forty to 
seventy-five cents in gold. 

In 1863 the daily cost of the war rose to ^2,500,000 and 
extraordinary loans had to be made. Chase, the Secretar}' 
of the Treasury, attempted to reHeve the situation by es- 
tablishing the national banking system which has remained 
to the present time. Associations of private citizens were 
authorized to establish national banks, on the condition, 
among others, that each national bank should purchase 
government bonds to the amount of one third of its capital. 
It could then deposit these bonds with the Federal Treasury 
and issue " National Bank Notes " up to 90 per cent of the 
value of the bonds deposited. The system permitted the 
government to sell its bonds, and the country had in the 
national bank notes a sound paper currency. 

At the end of the war, the government imposed a tax of 



THE CIVIL WAR 323 

10 per cent on paper money issued by state banks, with the 
result that these found it to their interest to take out charters 
as national banks and thus greatly increased the market for 
government bonds. 

350. Lee Driven Back to Richmond. — In the spring of 
1864 Grant, who had been given command of all the Union 
armies, took charge of the campaign in Virginia. The 
opposing armies had spent the winter facing each other on 
opposite sides of the Rapidan, the chief tributary of the 
Rappahannock. Early in May Grant crossed the Rapidan 
and met Lee in the Wilderness, near the old field of Chan- 
cellorsville. In this dense undergrowth fighting continued 
for two days. May 5 and 6, without any important success 
for either side. Grant now moved southeast to outflank 
Lee, but found the Confederates across his path at Spottsyl- 
vania Court House. Here fighting took place. May 8 to 21, 
at a great sacrifice of men on Grant's part, his losses in the 
Wilderness and at Spottsylvania being 34,000. But he 
felt that he could spare men while the enemy could not. 
It was at this time that he sent his famous dispatch 
saying, " I propose to fight it out on this line if it takes all 
summer." 

After Spottsylvania he again moved southeast and by 
the end of May reached the ground which McClellan had 
occupied two years before. June 3 he faced Lee at Cold 
Harbor, six miles north of the fortifications of Richmond, 
and in a fierce assault upon the Confederate lines lost 7000 
men in half an hour. Unable to reach the capital from the 
north, he now (June 14) crossed the James; but, before 
he could approach Richmond from the south, he had to 
take Petersburg, which was strongly held. Here he wasted 
nearly 15,000 lives in two weeks and then had to settle 



324 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

down to take the place by siege operations which lasted 
nine months. 

351. The Shenandoah Campaign. — On July i Lee sent 
General Early to clear the Shenandoah Valley of Union 
troops and threaten Washington, just as two years before 
he had sent Stonewall Jackson on a similar errand. Early 
acted with vigor and was prevented from entering Washing- 
ton only by the timely arrival of aid from Grant on July 12. 
Sheridan was now sent by Grant to put an end to Confeder- 
ate activity in the Shenandoah. Greatly outnumbering his 
opponent, he defeated Early at Winchester, September 19, 
and at Fisher's Hill three days later. To prevent further 
raids on Washington by way of the valley, he systematically 
destroyed everything that might be of use to an army. 
" A crow flying over the country would have to carry his 
rations," said Sheridan after he had completed his work of 
devastation. 

Early was reenforced and again sent north in response 
to a Southern demand for vengeance. He surprised the 
Federals at Cedar Creek, October 19, and drove them from 
the field. Sheridan, who had passed the night at Winchester, 
twenty miles away, was returning to his command when 
he heard what had happened. By hard riding he reached 
the scene of the disaster and by noon had re-formed his 
broken ranks and set out to meet the enemy, whom he 
swept from the field before night. 

352. The Second Election of Lincohi. — While Grant 
was making his costly advance toward Richmond, the 
presidential campaign of 1864 opened. The country saw 
the cost of Grant's bloody policy, but it could not see how 
near to exhaustion the South had come. Loud complaint 
of Lincoln's managenient of affairs was heard, and attempts 



THE CIVIL WAR 325 

were made to prevent his renomination. Though these 
attempts failed, many of his friends feared defeat at the 
polls. In order to gain as wide a support as possible, 
Lincoln's supporters dropped the name Republican and 
called themselves the Union Party when they renominated 
the President in June. For the vice-presidency they named 
Andrew Johnson of Tennessee, a Southern Democrat who 
had remained loyal to the Union. The Democrats named 
General McClellan as their presidential candidate and 
adopted a platform calhng for the cessation of bloodshed. 
Lincoln himself had doubts of his reelection, and the country 
seemed in a similar mood for a time; but when Sherman 
took possession of Atlanta in September, and Sheridan 
drove the Confederates out of the Shenandoah in October, 
a change came over the spirit of the North. Lincoln was 
reelected by the remarkable majority of 212 electoral votes 
to 21 for McClellan. 

353. A Peace Conference. — Throughout the winter of 
1 864-1 865, Lee had difficulty in keeping together 50,000 
poorly equipped and poorly fed men for the defense of 
Richmond, and Johnston had fewer than 40,000 with whom 
to oppose Sherman as he came north from Savannah through 
the Carolinas. The end of the rebellion seemed at hand, 
and Lincoln was invited to discuss terms of peace at a 
conference at Hampton Roads, February 3, 1865. He 
offered peace on condition that the South give up the idea 
of independence and accept emancipation of the slaves. 
The Confederate government was not officially represented 
at the conference and refused to listen to peace talk on the 
conditions proposed. 

354. Evacuation of Richmond, — In the spring of 1865 
Grant was able to push his lines westward past Petersburg 



326 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

to threaten the raihoad from Danville, Virginia, by which 
suppHes were brought to Richmond. To meet this danger 
Lee was compelled to extend his own lines which, on account 
of inadequate numbers, became very thinly held. As a 
result, the Confederates gave way at several points during 
the fighting of April i and 2, and the defense of Richmond 
was seen to be at an end. The Confederate government 
officials withdrew from their capital, and on April 3 Lee 
abandoned Richmond, hoping to escape along the railroad 
to Danville and unite with Johnston in North Carolina. 

355. Lee Surrenders, April 9, 1865. — Two days after the 
evacuation of Richmond, Sheridan's cavalry seized the 
Danville railroad and Lee directed his march to Lynchburg, 
where another railroad offered a chance of escape. Again 
Sheridan moved rapidly, and in the evening of April 8, at 
Appomattox Court House, put himself in front of the now 
dispirited Confederates. By a long night march Federal 
infantry, under Ord, came to Sheridan's support, and on 
the 9th Lee recognized that resistance was hopeless. 

He met Grant in the village of Appomattox, and the 
two great soldiers talked for a time of the days when they 
had seen service together in the Mexican War. The Union 
leader offered generous terms, which were accepted. Both 
officers and men were paroled on their promise not to fight 
again unless exchanged. Officers were to keep their side 
arms, and both officers and men retained their horses, if 
they owned them. The men would need them for the 
spring plowing. Grant said. Lee then bade farewell to his 
men, whose ranks had been thinned by war, sickness, and 
desertion until only 27,000 remained. 

356. Johnston Yields ; Davis Is Captured. — April 26 
General Joseph E. Johnston, who had 37,000 troops in 



THE CIVIL WAR 327 

North Carolina, yielded to Sherman on the same terms 
that Lee had received. Jefferson Davis, President of the 
Confederacy, was captured in southern Georgia, May 10, 
and during that month over 100,000 Confederate soldiers 
in various parts of the South laid down their arms. 

357. The Death of Lincoln (April 15). — The great- 
hearted leader who had carried the nation's burden through 
the years of war was not spared to see the completion of 
his work. As President Lincoln and his family were wit- 
nessing a play at Ford's theater in Washington on the 
evening of April 14, John Wilkes Booth, an actor, entered 
their box and fatally wounded the President with a pistol 
shot. The same evening an unsuccessful attempt was 
made to kill Secretary Seward at his home. The Presi- 
dent died the next morning at a few minutes past seven 
o'clock. The nation deeply mourned his death, and it 
must remain a matter of regret that he did not live to 
bind up the wounds caused by the war. 

358. Cost of the War. — Over 700,000 lives were lost in 
the war, the two sections suffering about equally in this 
respect ; wounds and disease disabled hundreds of thousands 
more. The war cost the national government three and a 
half billion dollars and of this ^2,808,000,000 remained as a 
national debt at the end of the conflict. The need of great 
revenue led the government to increase the tariff duties 
beyond anything the country had known, and since then 
the general high level of duties has been maintained. 

Aided by immigration, the North grew rapidly in popu- 
lation during the war; new wheat lands were brought 
under cultivation ; its industry and commerce expanded, 
and it was a richer section in 1865 than it had been in i860. 
The South, on the other hand, had grown but little in 



328 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

numbers, and in the vast destruction of property wrought 
by the war it was the chief sufferer. Lacking manufacturing 
resources, its railroads and other industrial equipment 
wore out and had to be slowly rebuilt after the war. The 
liberation of the slaves overturned the old system of agri- 
culture and left the South with the problem of reorganizing 
its farming with free labor and of caring for a negro popu- 
lation which had become free but remained largely helpless. 

359. The Thirteenth Amendment (1865). — The Emanci- 
pation Proclamation of January i, 1863, dealt only with 
slaves in the territory held by the Confederacy on that 
date. Before the end of the war Maryland, Missouri, and 
West Virginia, states which had remained loyal, freed the 
slaves within their borders, while the temporary govern- 
ments set up by Lincoln in Tennessee, Louisiana, and Vir- 
ginia did likewise in the regions which they controlled. 
Thus the loyal states of Kentucky and Delaware were the 
only portions of the United States where slavery was re- 
garded as legal at the end of the war. 

The work of emancipation was completed by the Thir- 
teenth Amendment to the Constitution, which was proposed 
by Congress early in 1865 and became a part of the Constitu- 
tion in December of that year. Under its provisions slavery 
was abolished in those places where it still existed and was 
forbidden forever within the United States. 

Vocabulary 
arsenal demolished emancipation vengeance 

Map Exercises 

I. Note carefully on your maps the location of Richmond and Wash- 
ington. 



THE CIVIL WAR 329 

2. Show on an outline map the place of all the important engagements 

of the war in the East. 

3. Trace carefully Grant's progress in the West in 1862. 

Questions 

I. Under what conditions and with what prospects did Abraham Lin- 
coln become President of the United States ? 2. State clearly his views 
on slavery and on secession. 3. Why was the attack on Fort Sumter a 
mistake .? 4. Name the states which seceded, in the order of their 
secession. 5. Compare the strength in numbers and in resources of the 
two parties at the opening of this conflict. 6. Why did much of the 
fighting center around Washington and Richmond ? 7. Name and 
characterize the important commanders on each side in the first year of 
the war. 8. Give results of the important engagements. 9. In what 
ways was England concerned in the Civil War .? How was trouble with 
England averted .? 10. How would the Merrimac and Monitor compare 
with a modern battleship? 11. Name and give results of the important 
engagements in the East in 1862. 12. What is the importance of Lin- 
coln's Emancipation Proclamation .? 13. Give the reason why Vicksburg 
was so important to the South. 14. Describe the exciting campaign 
ending in the capture of Lookout Mountain. 15. Why was Sherman 
anxious to capture Atlanta .? 16. What song was composed to com- 
memorate Sherman's march to the sea .^ 17. Give the leaders at the 
battle of Gettysburg and describe the event briefly. 18. Examine a 
"bank note" and compare it with a silver and a gold certificate. 
19. What event marks the breaking of the South's resistance? 20. Why 
did the South suffer more after the war than the North ? 21. How and 
when was slavery abolished in the United States ? 



CHAPTER XXI 

THE SOUTH RESTORED TO SOUTHERN CONTROL 

The Administrations of Johnson and Grant 

360. States or " Conquered Provinces " r — The war 
destroyed the system of slavery and put an end to the no- 
tion that a state is free to throw off the control of the na- 
tional government. But, as the war approached its end, 
this very important question was raised. How were the 
Southern states to be restored to their old place in the 
Union ? Two answers were given to this question, one by 
the President, the other by Congress. 

(a) Lmcoln held that a state could not secede, and conse- 
quently the Southern states were never out of the Union. 
It was, therefore, his opinion that as commander-in-chief 
of the army he could say when the Union soldiers should 
be withdrawn from the South and on what conditions civil 
government should be set up again in that region. 

(b) Congress, on the other hand, took the. view that the 
Southern states had ceased to be states of the Union ; they 
had committed state-suicide, it was said. Others called 
them " conquered provinces," to be administered by Con- 
gress as were any other territories of the United States. 

In July, 1864, Congress had passed what was known as 
the " Wade-Davis Bill " in order to keep in its own hands 
the work of restoring the Southern state governments. Lin- 

23° 



THE SOUTH RESTORED TO SOUTHERN CONTROL 331 



coin vetoed the bill and undertook to set up state govern- 
ments according to his own plans m four of the states where 
the Union army was in control. Congress refused to recog- 
nize any state that might be restored by Lincoln's plan and 
would not permit the electoral votes of such states to be 
counted. This was the situation when the great leader 
died and Andrew Johnson became President, April 15, 1865. 

361. Johnson Follows Lincoln's Plan. — President John- 
son, like Lincoln, was a man of humble parentage and self- 
taught. A native of Tennessee, he 
followed the trade of tailor and as a 
labor leader rose to political promi- 
nence. He had been a member of 
Congress and when elected to the vice- 
presidency was military governor of 
Tennessee. Though loyal to the 
Union, he believed in a large measure 
of state rights and found it easy to 
fall in with Lincoln's plan for restoring 
the Southern state governments with- 
out delay. Congress was not in session 
when he became President, and he 
had nearly eight months in which to act before another 
session began in December. By that time he had state gov- 
ernments completed or in process of formation in all the 
Southern states where Lincoln's plan was not already in 
operation. Certain classes of Confederate officials and men 
of wealth were excluded from voting but, in general, the 
President intended that Southern whites should control the 
civil government of the South. 

362. The "Black Codes." — The legislatures elected in 
the restored states soon began work. When they came to 




Andrf.w Johnson 



332 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

deal with the large negro population, they put restrictions 
on the blacks which alarmed public opinion in the North. 
The freedman was forbidden, in some states, to own land 
or to be a witness in court unless one party to the suit was 
colored. An idle negro might be arrested and fined ; if he 
could not pay his fine, he might be sentenced to work for a 
white man until the amount of the fine was earned. Other 
offenses besides idleness were punished in the same manner. 
The enactment of these " black codes " seemed to the South 
necessary in dealing with a race just freed from slavery, but 
to the North it appeared to be an attempt to reintroduce 
slavery under new forms ; and as a result Northerners urged 
Congress to undo Johnson's work of restoration. 

363. Congress Opposes the President. — When Con- 
gress met in December, 1865, it at once showed opposition 
to the President's policy by refusing to seat the representa- 
tives from the newly restored states. In the following 
months it passed, over the President's veto, a Civil Rights 
Bill and other measures to compel the South to recognize 
the negro as a citizen of the United States and to guarantee 
him a citizen's rights. 

364. The Fourteenth Amendment. — In June, 1866, 
Congress, under the leadership of Thaddeus Stevens in the 
House and Sumner in the Senate, went further and proposed 
a Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution with a num- 
ber of provisions which were distasteful to the South. 

Having proposed the amendment the Congressional 
leaders announced that no representatives would he received 
from a state which failed to ratify it. With the exception of 
Tennessee the states of the old Confederacy refused to ratify 
the amendment, and in the early months of 1867 Congress 
prepared to impose its will on the South. 



THE SOUTH RESTORED TO SOUTHERN CONTROL 333 

365. Reconstruction Acts of 1867. — Beginning in March, 
1867, Congress provided for the mihtary government of the 
South, except Tennessee. The governments set up by pres- 
idential authority were overthrown and the blacks given a 
voice m making new state constitutions which safeguarded the 
negro's right to vote. Northern poHticians now entered the 
South in large numbers, organized the negro vote, and secured 
control of the state governments. Under these conditions 
seven states conformed to the will of Congress, ratified the 
Fourteenth Amendment, and were permitted to take part in the 
presidential election of 1868. In July of that year the Four- 
teenth Amendment was declared a part of the Constitution. 

366. Impeachment of President Johnson (1868). — 
Throughout the year 1867 Congress sought means to get 
rid of President Johnson, who opposed its severe policy in 
the South. In February, 1868, the House of Representa- 
tives impeached the President of " high crimes and mis- 
demeanors," and asked that he be tried before the Senate 
for unlawfully dismissing Stanton, Secretary of War, from 
office; for criticisms of Congress which he had uttered; and 
for other offenses with which they charged him. 

367. The President Acquitted. — As the trial proceeded 
before the Senate, it was shown that Johnson had acted 
legally in dismissing Stanton, and it became clear that if 
the President were convicted it would be merely because 
his political enemies had a two-thirds majority in the 
Senate. His opponents failed by a single vote (May, 
1868) and Johnson was left to serve out his term. 

368. Election of Grant (1868). — In the campaign of 
1868 the Republicans nominated General Grant for the 
presidency and the Democrats named Horatio Seymour of 
New York. Grant proved a popular candidate and received 



334 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 



241 electoral votes as against 80 for his opponent. His ma- 
jority was increased by the fact that six of the restored states 
were completely in the hands of the negroes and " carpet- 
baggers," as the Northern pohticians who flocked to the 
South were called. 

369. The French in Mexico. — Before passing from John- 
son's presidency it is desirable to take account of two of his 
notable achievements in the field of diplomacy : the expul- 
sion of the French from Mexico, and the purchase of Alaska. 
Napoleon III, Emperor of the French, in 1861 sent an army 
to Mexico which set up an empire with Maximilian of Austria 
as Emperor. The act seemed to be a violation of the Monroe 
Doctrine, but the burdens of war kept the United States 
from interfering. At the end of the conflict vigorous pro- 
tests were made to Napoleon, and in 1866 he took measures 
to withdraw his army. No doubt he was aided in coming 
to a decision by the presence on the 
Mexican border of General Sheridan 
with over 50,000 veterans of the Civil 
War. The unhappy Maximilian, un- 
supported by French arms, was cap- 
tured and shot (June, 1867) and the 
Mexican Empire came to an end. 

370. Purchase of Alaska (1867).- — 
Secretary Seward turned from Mexican 
affairs to negotiations with the Russian 
government for the purchase of Alaska, 
which Russia had found too remote 
for effective control. There was some opposition because 
the wealth of the region was little known in America at the 
time, but in October, 1867, Alaska was taken over by the 
United States at a cost of ^7,000,000. 




William H. Seward 



THE SOUTH RESTORED TO SOUTHERN CONTROL 335 

371. " Carpetbagger " Government. — In the new state 
governments which were set up in the South in accordance 
with the will of Congress, the responsible men of the South 
were excluded from office. The conduct of affairs fell, for 
the most part, into the hands of " carpetbaggers " and ne- 
groes, who had little sense of responsibility and who expended 
the public money with criminal wastefulness. Illiterate 
negroes, suddenly raised to power, found, as Professor Pax- 
son points out " an irresistible attraction in the plush car- 
pets, the mahogany desks, and imported cuspidors " which 
they bought with the taxpayers' money. Fraud and bribery 
entered everywhere into the public service. 

372. The Ku Klux Klan. — -Unable to secure political 
control by peaceful means, the Southern white population 
resorted to violence and intimidation. Secret societies, known 
by the general name of the Ku Klux Klan, were organized, 
beginning in 1867. At night they sent out masked horse- 
men who flogged negroes and an occasional carpetbagger, 
and at times hanged their victims. By these deeds of vio- 
lence, carried on through four or five years, negroes were 
frightened away from the polls and the whites were enabled 
to regain political control. 

In 1 871 Congress passed legislation to protect negro voters, 
and President Grant increased the Federal military forces 
in the South. But the Klan had already done its work in 
most of the Southern states. The negroes, it was found, 
could be kept from the polls without resort to violence, and 
by this time the Southern white population had been con- 
solidated into a single party, the Democratic, which put 
them in a majority in a number of states. 

373. The Fifteenth Amendment (1870). — Once the 
Southern whites got control of their state governments, they 



336 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

were free to pass laws prohibiting negroes from voting. The 
only penalty for so doing was a reduction of Southern mem- 
bership in Congress as provided in the Fourteenth Amend- 
ment. Congress, therefore, determined to enforce negro 
suffrage in the South, although at the time only a few North- 
ern states permitted the negroes to vote. By the Fifteenth 
Amendment, proclaimed in force March 30, 1870, the right 
of a citizen to vote must not be denied on account of " race, 
color, or previous condition of servitude." The three states 
of the South, hitherto unrestored, were compelled to ratify 
the Fifteenth Amendment; and in 1870 the process of res- 
toration was completed, but only in name, for Federal garri- 
sons were still in control in various parts of the South. 

374. Reelection of Grant (1872). — As the presidential 
election of 1872 approached, a large number of Repubhcans 
were found opposing the renomination of Grant. Many in 
the North, even in the dominant Republican Party, opposed 
the continuation of military rule in the South and denounced 
the Administration for that rule, though it was Congress 
and not the President that should have been held responsible. 
Another group of Repubhcans was anxious to overturn the 
" spoils svstem " and wished to make appointments and 
promotions in the civil service depend on merit and not 
merely on political influence. This group found Grant 
somewhat unsympathetic toward their reform and under- 
took to defeat him for reelection. 

The Republican opponents of the President, calling them- 
selves Liberal Republicans, nominated Horace Greeley of 
the New York Tribune for President on a platform demand- 
ing civil service reform and home rule for the South. The 
Democrats, hoping for victory, accepted Greeley as their 
candidate, though he had been their bitter opponent. Grant, 



THE SOUTH RESTORED TO SOUTHERN CONTROL 337 

who was renominated by the RepubHcan Party, was elected 
by the large majority of 272 electoral votes as against 66 for 
Greeley. The great editor died within a few weeks after his 
defeat. 

375. The Alabama Award. — During the presidential 
campaign of 1872, the country was gratified to hear that a 
long-standing dispute with Great Britain had terminated 
satisfactorily. We have read that the United States had 
complained of the action of the British Government in per- 
mitting the Confederate cruiser Alabama to escape from an 
English port to prey upon Federal commerce. The United 
States had long urged reparation for the injury, and, in 1871, 
in the treaty of \\ ashington. Great Britain apologized for 
any lack of diligence on her part in letting the Alabama es- 
cape and agreed to arbitrate the question of liability for 
damages before an international tribunal at Geneva. 

The Geneva Tribunal, made up of five members, one each 
from the United States, Great Britain, Switzerland, Italy, 
and Brazil, found that Great Britain was responsible for 
damages to our commerce done by the Alabama, and awarded 
to the United States ^15,000,000, to be paid to those whose 
property had been destroyed. 

376. Political Corruption of the Period. — It was not 
only in the South that a low moral tone was found in politi- 
cal life. In the North in city and state governments theft 
of public funds was common, and in national affairs Con- 
gressmen and others in high places were found taking bribes. 
Many revelations of political dishonesty were made during 
Grant's second term of office. In 1873 two members were 
expelled from the House of Representatives for bribery in 
connection with an investigation into the affairs of the new 
Union Pacific railroad. Many other members were brought 

z 



33' 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 



under suspicion, and the career of Colfax, the Vice-Presi- 
dent, was wrecked by connection with the scandal. In 
1875 it was found that high officials in the Treasury Depart- 
ment had permitted whisky distillers to defraud the gov- 
ernment of millions of internal revenue. The next year 
Belknap, Secretary of War, was found to have received 
thousands of dollars in bribes in connection with Indian 
affairs, and resigned just in time to escape impeachment. 

377. The Disputed Election of 1876. — These scandals 
created a painful impression on the country and did much 

to injure the Republican Party. 
The financial panic of 1873, fol- 
lowed by severe business depression, 
also caused many voters to turn 
from the party in power, as a period 
of " hard times " always does. 
The Democrats won a majority in 
the House of Representatives in 
1874, and as the presidential elec- 
tion of 1876 came on they were 
confident of securmg control of the 
government. Their candidate was 
Samuel J. Tilden, Governor of New York, who was prominent 
in the reform movement in his state. The Republicans nomi- 
nated Rutherford B. Hayes of Ohio. To draw public atten- 
tion away from the corruption in high places in their party, 
the Republican leaders sought to stir up the bitter memories 
of the war time and launched a debate in Congress on the 
conduct of the Southern military prisons during the rebellion. 
The Southern leaders replied warmly, as was expected, and 
a large portion of the campaign was devoted to a discussion 
of old issues. 




Rutherford B. Hayes 



THE SOUTH RESTORED TO SOUTHERN CONTROL 339 

When the election was over, it was found that 19 electoral 
votes from three Southern states, South Carolina, Loui- 
siana, and Florida, were disputed. The " carpetbagger " 
governments were still in existence in those states, and Fed- 
eral troops prevented the southern whites from getting con- 
trol of affairs. Each party in these states charged the other 
with fraud and each sent its list of votes to Washington. 
Aside from the vote from these states, Tilden had 184 votes 
and Hayes 166. Unless Hayes got every disputed vote he 
would be defeated. 

378. The Electoral Commission (1877). — The question 
now arose as to which votes from the disputed states would 
be counted. The Constitution does not make provision for 
a case of this kind and the Republican Senate and the Demo- 
cratic House found it difficult to agree. In January, 1877, 
Congress set up an Electoral Commission of fifteen mem- 
bers, five from the Senate, five from the House, and five 
Justices of the Supreme Court. After some weeks of in- 
vestigation the Commission, of which eight members were 
Republican and seven Democratic, gave every disputed 
vote to Hayes, who accordingly became President. 

379. Federal Garrisons Withdrawn from the South. — 
Before the decision of the Commission became known, 
friends of Hayes promised that he would withdraw the 
Federal garrisons which upheld " carpetbagger " rule in 
the three states. Whether or not Hayes had knowledge 
of this promise, he soon recalled the troops and the southern 
whites came into power. The Democrats had lost the 
presidency, but they had won the three states. Since then 
the South has been left for the most part to solve its own 
problems. 



340 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

Vocabulary 
arbitration diplomacy dominant impeachment international 

Questions 

I. State the views held by Lincoln concerning the South toward the 
close of the war and those of his opponents in Congress. 2. How did 
Andrew Johnson become President ? What were his views on secession ? 
3. What was the purpose of the "Black Codes" ? 4. How can a bill be 
passed over the President's veto ? 5. Give briefly the subject matter of 
each of the three "war" amendments. 6. What do you think of the 
methods used to force acceptance of the Fourteenth Amendment ? 7. Re- 
view the Monroe Doctrine in connection with Johnson's expulsion of the 
French from Mexico. 8. How has the purchase of Alaska proved to be a 
wise move ? 9. What did the Ku Klux Klan accomplish ? What were its 
methods ? 10. State the principles for which the opponents of Grant 
stood in 1872. II. What criticisms of the Republican administration 
were urged before the election of 1876? 12. How and when was the 
South relieved of military control ? 



CHAPTER XXII 

A NEW INDUSTRIAL ERA 

380. The Centennial Year. — The presidential cam- 
paign of 1876, resulting in the election of Hayes, was the 
last in which the problems left by the war were the chief 
matters of political discussion. Before another President 
was elected a great Republian leader, James G. Blaine, 
advised his friends that the people were no longer interested 
in the old conflict between North and South. " You want 
to fold up the bloody shirt and put it away. It's of no use 
to us," he told them. A new industrial era had begun, 
bringing with it new problems and forcing upon the atten- 
tion of the country new political issues. 

In 1876 the nation invited the world to the Centennial 
Exposition at Philadelphia in commemoration of the 
hundredth anniversary of independence. The exposition 
revealed to Europeans and to Americans themselves the 
great and varied resources of the country. It exhibited 
also the inventive skill of the American people in many 
lines but, at the same time, when American manufactured 
products were placed beside those of European make they 
were seen to be lacking in artistic execution. The exposi- 
tion was of great benefit in raising the standards of Ameri- 
can taste. 

341 



342 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

381. Signs of the New Era. — The growth of the country 
was seen in the extension of railroads, in the development 
of the far West, in the arrival of vast numbers of immigrants 
from the Old World, in the growth of gigantic business 
organizations or " trusts," and in other ways. 

382. Railroad Extension. — Railroad construction, which 
had been checked by the war, went forward rapidly with the 
coming of peace. Congress loaned money generously to 
aid in building the Union Pacific from Omaha by way of 
Ogden, Utah Territory, to Sacramento, and in addition 
gave twenty sections of land for every mile of track. An 
area larger than the state of New York was thus presented 
to the owners of the railroad and similar lavish grants were 
made to other roads. In the spring of 1869 a celebration 
was held near Ogden, where the last spike was driven and the 
two oceans were united by bands of steel. 

In 1870 the country had 53,000 miles of railroad and in 
the following decade, in spite of several years of hard times, 
the mileage had risen to 92,000. Then from 1880 to 1890 
came the most remarkable railroad building era the country 
has seen, when the mileage was raised to 164,000. The 
years from 1881 to 1885 saw the completion of three trans- 
continental lines, the Northern Pacific, the Atchison, Topeka, 
and Santa Fe, and the Southern Pacific. 

Not only were new roads built, but old railroads were 
fitted with heavy steel rails in place of iron, an improve- 
ment made possible by the invention of the Bessemer pro- 
cess of steel manufacture. Heavier engines and larger cars 
could now be used and the cost of transportation was greatly 
reduced. Along with these improvements in operation 
went another, — the consolidation of short lines into larger 
units. Before i860 railroad companies rarely controlled 



A NEW INDUSTRIAL ERA 343 

more than a few hundred miles of road. Consohdation led 
to betterment of the service and more economical manage- 
ment, though a carelessness of human life long remained a 
characteristic of American railway management. In 1882, 
in consequence of the growth of railroads, the managers 
agreed upon a standard time to take the place of the variety 
of local time before prevalent. 

383. Discrimination in Freight Rates, — Though the 
rapid extension of railroads built up many new communities 
in the West, the settlers were not without grievances against 
the roads. The railway managers regarded their business 
as private and kept their freight rates secret. Large 
shippers were given special rates, to the grave injury of 
smaller shippers. Cities were built up by low rates at the 
expense of their neighbors. The West was dependent for 
its prosperity on the railroads, and many communities 
suffered extreme hardships not only from unequal rates but 
from extortionate rates. In the East, where a district was 
more likely to be served by competing railroads, excessive 
charges were not so frequent. 

384. Attempts at State Regulation. — By 1870 the evils 
of discrimination in rates and secret rebates aroused the 
West, and the states of the upper Mississippi Valley under- 
took to regulate the worst abuses of the railway business. 
A State Railway Commission was established in Illinois in 
1871 with power to fix rates ; and Iowa, Wisconsin, and other 
states followed with similar legislation. 

These attempts to regulate railroad rates by state law 
became known as the " Granger Laws," from the activity 
of a social and political society which arose at this time in 
the Northwest, calling itself " The Patrons of Husbandry," 
but generally known as "The Grange." In 1874 the 



344 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

society contained a million and a half members, chiefly in 
the northwest farming states. 

385. The Interstate Commerce Commission (1887). — 
It early became evident that state regulation of railroads 
was not sufficient, especially in the case of transcontinental 
lines and other great railway systems, each of which served 
many states. A Congressional commission reported in 
1886 that the railroad problem could be solved only by 
national regulation, and urged the appointment of a Federal 
commission with extensive powers. In the same year the 
Supreme Court decided that the regulation of the great 
railway systems was a work which Congress alone could 
perform. By the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887, secret 
rates and other unfair practices were forbidden and a com- 
mission of five members was created with power to investi- 
gate the business of railroads engaged in interstate commerce 
and punish violations of the act. Serious abuses continued 
to thrive for many years in spite of the Commission, but 
from the beginning it did a valuable work in collecting 
evidence and in educating the public concerning the evils 
of railroad management. 

386. Indian Wars. — The advance of white civilization 
across the continent was marked from the beginning by 
frequent clashes with the natives, who saw their hunting 
grounds taken from them and their food supply endangered. 
In the far West the coming of gold-hunters in the Civil 
War period alarmed the Indians of that region and when, in 
later years, the railroad builders appeared, the red man 
felt that he had to fight for his existence. Vast herds of 
buffalo roaming the western plains offered the natives a 
valuable food supply ; but the whites, finding a ready sale 
for buffalo hides, slaughtered these animals without regard 



A NEW INDUSTRIAL ERA 



345 



for the interests of the Indians, over a milhon buffalo 
being killed annually within a few years after the opening 
of the Union Pacific. 

The resistance of the natives to the encroachments of 
the whites led to a series of conflicts which became serious 
during the Civil War and lasted for twenty years or more. 
Officers of the army who were sent to deal with the Indians 
became convinced that a policy of severe repression was 
necessary. Occasionally they competed with the natives in 
savagery, refusing at times to give quarter, and even killing 
women and children. 

One of the bloodiest campaigns of the Indian wars was 
that of 1876, undertaken to punish the Sioux, who wandered 
from their reservation in the 
west of what is now South 
Dakota and disobeyed the order 
of General Sheridan to return. 
Sitting Bull, the Sioux chief, 
was a capable leader and fought 
off his pursuers during several 
months. In July General Custer 
came up with him on the Little 
Big Horn in southern Montana. 
Concealing most of his forces, 
the Indian leader invited attack, 
and Custer, advancing to the charge, was cut down with 
his whole detachment of two hundred and four men. Sitting 
Bull and his followers withdrew across the Canadian border 
and did not return to the reservation until three years later, 
when they were given a general pardon. 

387. The Dawes Act (1887). — One result of the Indian 
wars was that nearly all the Indians of the country were 




Gen. George Armstrong Custer 



346 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

confined to reservations set aside for them. The opinion 
grew that the old tribal ownership of land ought to cease and 
that the Indians would become civilized more readily if the 
lands were divided and distributed to individual Indians. 
By the Dawes Act of 1887, the President was given power 
to allot lands to such Indians as he might choose. On 
receiving his allotment the Indian was to become a citizen 
with a vote and other rights except that he could not sell 
his land for twenty-five years. This arrangement did not 
always work well, as his citizenship permitted the Indian 
to buy intoxicating liquor, and he often sold his vote for a 
square meal. Accordingly, in 1906, the Burke Act provided 
that the Indian should not become a citizen until he came 
into full ownership of his land and that the President should 
have authority to determine when he was worthy of re- 
ceiving full title. The act also prohibited the selling or 
giving of intoxicants to Indians who were not yet citizens. 
388. Indian Education. — The destruction of life and 
the expense entailed by the Indian wars led President Grant 
to hope for a settlement of the Indian question through the 
Christianizing of the natives. In 1870 he announced his 
" Indian Peace Policy," under which he determined to give 
the Indian agencies over " to such religious denominations 
as had heretofore established missionaries among the 
Indians." But in carrying out this policy, which the 
government adhered to until 1882, the terms of Grant's 
announcement were not fulfilled. Catholic missionaries had 
taken up work in thirty-eight of the seventy-two agencies 
then in existence, but only eight agencies were assigned to 
the Catholic Church, and 80,000 Catholic Indians were 
deprived of the ministrations of their religion. To take 
care of the interests of the Catholic Indians, a society was 



A NEW INDUSTRIAL ERA 347 

organized in 1874, which in recent years has been known as 
the Bureau of CathoHc Indian Missions. The Bureau has 
occupied itself in protecting the rights of the Indians and 
in providing them with schools and missionaries. The 
work of Indian education has been greatly fostered by the 
generosity of Mother Katherine Drexel, foundress of the 
Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament for Indian and Colored 
People, who has given several millions of her personal for- 
tune in aid of this cause. The government maintains over 
three hundred Indian schools, some of which afford oppor- 
tunity for higher education. 

389. The Admission of Nine New States. — In 1859 
rich silver deposits were found in what is now Nevada, and 
as a population of some thousands was soon gathered at 
Virginia City and other centers, statehood was secured in 
1864. Nebraska was admitted into the Union in 1867; 
and Colorado, the Centennial State, with its rich mines of 
silver and lead, was admitted in 1876. The growth of the 
West consequent upon railroad development was shown in 
a striking manner when four states, South Dakota, North 
Dakota, Montana, and Washington, were admitted to the 
Union in 1889, and two others, Wyoming and Idaho, in 
1890. Utah, on account of the tardiness of the Mormons 
in giving up polygamy, was refused admittance until 1896. 

390. Department of Agriculture Created. — The rapid 
extension of American agriculture led to a sharp fall in 
prices of farm products and, as a result, many of the poorer 
farms became unprofitable. Great interest was aroused in 
scientific methods of agriculture which might make the 
farmer's business more profitable. As the new regions of the 
West were reached, it was seen that irrigation and other new 
methods of farming had to be studied. To assist in solving 



348 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

the farmer's problems the Department of Agriculture was 
created in 1889. 

391. The New South. — After the destruction wrought 
by the war, the South lacked the necessary capital for a 
rapid extension of its railroads ; and besides it had to re- 
build its worn-out lines. By 1880, however, railroad con- 
struction was going forward rapidly, and in the next ten 
years the railroad mileage of the old Confederate States 
increased from 17,000 to 36,000. For many years after the 
war the South clung to cotton culture as it had done before 
the war, although the great plantations of earlier days were 
cut up into smaller farms. The area of cotton culture was 
in fact increased owing to the cultivation of vast fields in 
Texas which were now reached by railroads. The fall in 
the price of cotton turned attention to other crops ; and 
by the end of the century the cotton states had more acres 
planted with corn than with cotton, though the total out- 
put of cotton did not decline. Fruit culture and other 
forms of agriculture have also received much attention in 
Florida and other southern states. 

Since 1880 the great mineral resources of the South in 
coal and iron have been developed with constantly increas- 
ing success. The building of cotton mills and the establish- 
ment of other industrial enterprises have fostered the growth 
of large cities, and have brought with them the labor prob- 
lems that accompany modern industry everywhere. The 
old South was opposed to internal improvements that 
were to be made by the general government, but in recent 
years the new South has welcomed Federal aid in con- 
trolling the floods of the Mississippi and improving naviga- 
tion on it. Federal aid also is asked in reclaiming the swamp 
lands along the Mississippi and in other regions of the South. 



A NEW INDUSTRIAL ERA 349 

392. The Negro Problem. — The South has continued to 
keep the negro from taking an active part in pohtics. Since 
1890 this has been done by setting up tax-paying and educa- 
tional qualifications which could be used to prevent negroes 
from voting but which need not be enforced against poor 
and illiterate whites. 

Though the negro is denied political power, he is progress- 
ing in other fields. Great numbers of negroes have become 
farmers, either as renters or owners. At the end of the 
nineteenth century the number of negro owners had risen 
to 150,000, with farms averaging fifty-five acres in size. 
Illiteracy has decreased very rapidly among them through 
the multiplication of schools, many of which have been 
built or aided by funds raised in the North. In 1881 
Booker T. Washington established Tuskegee Institute in 
Alabama, a trade school for members of his own race, and 
managed it very successfully until his death in 191 5. 

393. Growth of Population ; Immigration. — The popula- 
tion of the country, which at the beginning of the Civil 
War was somewhat more than 30,000,000, rose to 50,000,000 
in 1880. Ten years later it was over 63,000,000 and by the 
end of the century, 77,000,000. Immigrants formed an 
important element in this rapid growth of numbers. The 
war and the " hard times " after 1873 retarded the stream 
of immigration for a few years ; but it then rose rapidly. 
During the year of 1882 nearly 800,000 aliens landed on our 
shores. Though this figure was not reached again for 
twenty years, a large number of immigrants continued to 
come. 

The railroads of the West, which had been given over a 
hundred million acres of land, sent agents to Europe to 
encourage migration to western farms ; while the mill- 



350 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

owners of the East sought to promote immigration in order 
to insure a steady supply of laborers. The steamship 
lines, which profited by the vast increase in ocean travel, also 
stimulated immigration. Germans and Irish remained for 
some years the most important groups among the new- 
comers, although Scandinavians came in increasing numbers, 
settling chiefly in the Northwest. The character of im- 
migration changed after 1890. Since then southern and 
eastern Europe have contributed an ever-growing proportion 
of transatlantic immigration. Italians, Bohemians, Poles, 
and other Slavic peoples, Hungarians, Greeks, and Jews 
from Russia have been largely represented in later years. 

394. Restrictions on Immigration. — It was feared that 
the coming of so many laborers would bring down the rate 
of wages in this country, so American labor societies urged 
that restrictions be placed upon immigration. In 1882 
Congress provided for the inspection of immigrants and 
the deportation of those suffering from certain diseases, 
idiots, anarchists, and others regarded as undesirable. At 
the same time a head tax of fifty cents (later raised to two 
dollars and since 1907 to four dollars) was levied on each 
immigrant. In 1885 a Contract Labor Law was passed, 
forbidding the importation of aliens under contract to 
labor. 

395. Growth of Labor Unions. — With the growth of 
large cities and the building of great manufacturing estab- 
Hshments came new labor problems which were forced 
upon the attention of the public. With the extension of 
railroads and other means of communication came the 
organization of workingmen in special fields of industry 
into national unions to take care of their common interests. 
Among the first to organize nationally were the railroad 



A NEW INDUSTRIAL ERA 351 

workers, the locomotive engineers in 1863, the railway con- 
ductors in 1868, and the railway firemen the next year. 
By this time about forty other trades had organized 
nationally. 

In 1869 there took place a new development in the labor 
world. In that year the Knights of Labor were established 
in Philadelphia to represent the interests of all laborers, 
skilled and unskilled. In their early days the Knights 
were a secret society, partly because many employers 
made membership in a labor organization a cause of dis- 
missal. After 1882 the society ceased to be secret; and, 
under the capable leadership of Terence V. Powderly, it 
made a determined fight for better labor conditions. As a 
result of its campaign of education, a number of states 
established labor bureaus, following in this respect the 
example of Massachusetts, which set up a State Bureau of 
Labor Statistics in 1869. These bureaus did much to 
secure the enforcement of new factory legislation, to guard 
against dangerous machinery, and to secure healthful 
working conditions. In 1884 a Federal Labor Bureau was 
established, whose reports proved of great value in educating 
public opinion concerning the need of laws for the protection 
of working people, and especially women and children. 

In the past twenty-five years the place formerly occupied 
by the Knights of Labor has been taken by the American 
Federation of Labor. This society, first organized in 1881, 
is a federation of the national labor unions. Its annual 
convention offers an opportunity for the labor leaders of 
the country to discuss the problems of organized labor. 

396. The Expansion of Manufactures. — With the 
growth of the country in other lines of industry, the expan- 
sion of manufactures kept pace. Improvements in manu- 



352 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 



facture permitted the use of steel in buildings and for many 
other new purposes ; city structures rose to great heights, 
a single building sometimes requiring a thousand tons of 
steel. The excellence of American manufactures, especially 
in farm machinery and sewing machines, led to large 
exports. By 1892 the nation was exporting as much steel 
and iron of one kind as it imported of another kind. By 
the end of the century the country became the greatest 
producer of pig-iron in the world. The use of copper for 
electrical purposes stimulated the production of that metal, 
so that the output of American mines rose from 27,000 tons 
in 1880 to 270,000 tons in 1900. In woolen and cotton 
manufacture likewise, vast strides were made. 

397. Inventions ; the Electrical Age. — The progress of 
the United States, as well as of the world at large, was in- 
creased wonderfully by a number of 
inventions which were brought into 
everyday use in this period. Inven- 
tions were especially important in the 
field of electricity. In 1876 Alex- 
ander Graham Bell, who benefited by 
the labors of French and German 
scientists, secured a patent for the 
telephone, which has become so valu- 
able an aid to the business world. A 
few years later, in 1880, the electric 
arc and the incandescent lamp were 
put to commercial use, thus laying the foundation for vast 
businesses. In 1884 the overhead trolley was brought into 
practical use in the operation of electric railways, and in the 
following ten years the horse car was almost excluded from 
the streets of our cities. The phonograph was devised by 




Thomas A. Edison 



A NEW INDUSTRIAL ERA 353 

Thomas A. Edison as early as 1877, but it was more than 
ten years later before its production on a commercial scale 
became profitable. Another invention of very great value 
to the business men of the country was the typewriter, 
which was perfected about the same time. Of importance 
also were the improvements in photography, and especially 
in photo-engraving, by which the printing art profited 
immensely. 

398. Business Concentration. — By 1880 there could be 
observed not merely an important development of American 
trade and manufactures ; but there was also a remarkable 
concentration of business management. This concentration 
has already been noted in the railroad world, where short 
lines were combined by purchase or lease into great railroad 
systems. Men in other lines soon saw the advantage of 
business combination. They saw that if they should 
organize their businesses in this way, they would be able 
to buy materials in larger quantities at better prices ; they 
would be able to borrow money more readily and at lower 
rates of interest ; they could cut down the cost of selling 
goods because their salesmen, instead of competing with 
each other, could be set at work in new fields. The extension 
of railroads, the development of the express business, and of 
telegraph and telephone service widened the market that 
could be reached from the great manufacturing centers and 
stimulated the concentration of business. The adoption of 
low rates of postage, and the perfecting of methods of news- 
paper and magazine illustration contributed to the same 
result, as may be seen in the ready-made clothing business, 
where a few great manufacturers by extensive advertising 
control most of the trade and fix the " styles " for the whole 
country. The use of illustrated catalogues has permitted 
2 A 



354 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

the organization of huge " mail-order houses," which deal 
with customers in every part of the world. 

Business concentration went on very briskly from 1880 
to 1890. The number of plants making farm machinery 
was reduced in those years from nearly two thousand to 
fewer than one thousand, though the output was increased 
twofold. In the same ten years the number of woolen mills 
was reduced from 1990 to 13 11, with a vastly increased 
output. A similar consohdation took place in many other 
fields of industry. 

399. The Rise of Trusts. — In some lines concentration 
went very far, and occasionally one man or a small group of 
men acting together could influence the course of a whole 
industry, competition being weakened or entirely overcome. 
The name "trust" came into popular use to describe an 
industry controlled in this fashion. The first trust to 
attract attention grew up in the new industry for refining 
petroleum. Its chief promoter was John D. Rockefeller of 
Cleveland, who in 1865 organized the Standard Oil Company. 
Aided by shrewd management, but especially by secret re- 
bates from the railroads, the Standard rose to a dominant 
position in the oil industry, and by 1882 had driven nearly 
all its competitors out of business or compelled them to join 
the trust. The success of Rockefeller in building up a great 
monopoly through discrimination in freight rates had a 
large influence in securing the Interstate Commerce Act of 
1887. 

400. The Sherman Anti-Trust Act (1890). — Men in 
other industries were quick to follow the example of the 
Cleveland oil refiner, and many trusts now sprang up, chief 
among them being the Whisky Trust and the Sugar Trust. 
Though it was recognized that these great combinations had 



A NEW INDUSTRIAL ERA 355 

many advantages, it was also seen that they exercised 
dangerous powers. It was said that they fixed prices for 
the materials they bought and the products they sold. 
They were known to destroy competitors by unfair and 
sometimes by criminal means, and they were felt to be a 
corrupting influence in the political life of the country. 

In 1890 Congress enacted the Sherman Anti-Trust Law, 
which forbade the trusts to engage in interstate commerce; 
but, for many years, no serious attempt was made to enforce 
it. Meanwhile the trusts grew in number and size. The 
failure to control the trusts under the Sherman Anti-Trust 
Act led in 1914 to the enactment of important supple- 
mentary legislation from which much good was expected. 

401. The Australian Ballot. — The bribery of voters at 
elections had become a dangerous evil which led to a demand 
for a secret ballot. At this time ballots were printed and 
distributed by the candidate for ofl&ce or by his party. The 
voter could be given a ballot arranged to suit the party 
leaders, and he could be watched until he deposited it in 
the ballot box. In 1888 Massachusetts led the way to 
reform by adopting a system of voting similar to that in 
use in Australia, and in the next four years about three 
fourths of the states followed her example. Under the 
Australian plan the voter receives a ballot printed by the 
state and is enabled to mark and deposit it in secret. 

Vocabulary 

consolidation discrimination extortionate rebates 
standard transcontinental 

Questions 

I. What was the value of the Philadelphia Exposition of 1876 ? Have 
recent expositions, such as the San Francisco Fair of 1915, the same value ? 
Have you attended an exposition ? 2. What were the difficulties that 



356 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

made a transcontinental railroad such a wonderful achievement? 3. Is 
the consolidation of short railroads an unmixed advantage ? 4. Explain 
the changes in time from New York to San Francisco. What "time 
zone" do you live in? 5. Is there a branch of the "Grange" in your 
locality ? 6. Is there still a Federal commission to regulate interstate 
commerce ? 7. Review the Indian Question (Sec. 302). 8. Describe an 
imaginary visit to an Indian reservation. 9. Name the present head of 
the Department of Agriculture. Do you know of any of its special 
activities at present ? 10. Since the war, how have the North and the 
South become more united commercially? 11. Why do the negroes 
continue to be a problem in the South? 12. What is the immigration 
problem of the West ? Why is it more serious than in the East ? 13. In 
what part of the United States are the greatest copper mines ? 14. What 
is the difference between iron and steel? 15. What is meant by pig- 
iron? For what is it used? 16. Give a list of all the objects in your 
home and school that could not have been there twenty-five years ago. 
Fifty years ago. 17. What are the good and bad points of a "trust"? 
18. Explain the Australian ballot. 



CHAPTER XXIII 

CIVIL SERVICE REFORM, THE TARIFF, AND FREE SILVER 

The Administrations of Hayes, Garfield, Arthur, 
Cleveland, Harrison 

402. President Hayes and His Party. — President Hayes, 
as we have seen, withdrew the national garrisons from the 
South and left that region in Southern control. His action 
angered many in his party; some because they feared the 
South would not deal justly with the negro, and others be- 
cause the withdrawal of the troops meant the loss to the 
party of many offices in the South and even threatened the 
party's control of the national government. 

Another question soon arose to lessen the President's 
popularity with the party leaders. He made Carl Schurz, 
a distinguished German-American, Secretary of the In- 
terior. Schurz, who was a friend of civil service reform, at 
once announced his intention of choosing men in his depart- 
ment on merit and not for political reasons. Senators and 
Representatives and other party leaders who had been in 
the habit of using the places in the public service as prizes 
to hold the party together, denounced Schurz and then at- 
tacked the President when he upheld the Secretary. Sena- 
tor Conkling of New York was specially bitter in his de- 
nunciation of the President, who had removed from office 
Chester A. Arthur, Collector of the Port of New York, a 

357 



358 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

close friend of Conkling. The civil service reformers, on 
the other hand, denounced Hayes because he did not go far 
enough to suit them. Mrs. Hayes added to the unpopu- 
larity of her husband among certain classes by refusing to 
serve wines at the White House dinners. When the time 
came to choose his successor, the party refused Hayes the 
honor of a second nomination. 

403. The Bland-Allison Law (1878). — During Hayes' 
administration the " free sdver " question became a subject 
of political discussion and for the next twenty years con- 
tinued to be debated. From 1834 to 1873 the government 
permitted what was known as the free and unlimited coin- 
age of gold and silver at the ratio of sixteen to one. In other 
words, any person could present any amount of gold or silver 
bullion at the mints and receive for it an equal value in coin 
on payment of a small fee. By the ratio of sixteen to one 
it is meant that the five-dollar gold piece, for example, would 
be only one sixteenth as heavy as five silver dollars, one 
ounce of gold being worth about sixteen ounces of silver in 
the market. The great increase in gold production after the 
opening of the California mines in 1849 cheapened gold 
somewhat and the silver dollar became worth as much as 
$1.03 in gold. That is to say, the manufacturers of silver- 
ware and other users of silver were willing to pay more for 
the bullion than the silver was worth as money. As a re- 
sult silver was not presented at the mints during a number 
of years; and, in 1873, Congress directed that the silver 
dollar should no longer be coined. 

But by the time Hayes became President the new silver 
mines of the West were producing vast quantities of the 
metal, and silver fell in value until it would have paid the 
mine-owners to be able to coin it. They now demanded a 



CIVIL SERVICE REFORM 



359 



renewal of the old coinage. Instead of opening the mints 
to all the silver offered, Congress in 1878 passed what was 
known as the Bland-Allison Law which directed the Treas- 
ury to buy from ^2,000,000 to ^4,000,000 worth of silver a 
month and com it. 

404. Specie Payments Resumed (1879). — ^ It has been 
noted that during the war the government issued nearly half 
a billion dollars' worth of notes which bore no interest and 
mentioned no date for their redemption in coin or specie. 
Because of the uncertainty as to their redemption, these 
" greenbacks " circulated at a lower value than gold, thereby 
causing great inconvenience. In 1875 Congress passed the 
Resumption Act fixing January i, 1879, as the day on which 
the government would resume specie payments ; that is, 
pay out gold for greenbacks at their face value. When the 
day arrived there was little call for gold. The people were 
content to know that they could 

get gold for their greenbacks if they 
wanted it. Greenbacks rose to 
equal value with gold, and as they 
were more convenient to handle 
they remained in circulation. 

405. The Election of Garfield 
(1880). — The Republican Party, 
turning from Hayes, had difficulty 
in uniting on a candidate in the 
presidential campaign of 1880. 
There was an attempt to name 
Grant for a third term, but at length the party determined 
upon James A. Garfield, a Congressman from Ohio, who 
had risen to the rank of Major-General during the war. 
The Democrats likewise found a soldier candidate in the 




James A. Garfield 



360 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 



person of General Winfield Scott Hancock, a hero of Gettys- 
burg. Towards the end of the campaign the protective 
tariff, which was to figure largely in later contests, became 
a subject of debate. There was, however, no clearly defined 
issue between the parties and the campaign was filled with 
bitter personal attacks on the candidates. The election was 
very close, Garfield receiving only 10,000 more votes than 
Hancock, though the electoral vote stood 214 to 155. 

406. Death of Garfield; Arthur Becomes President. — 
A few months after his inauguration the new President was 
shot while waiting in a Washington rail- 
way station (July 2, 1881), and died 
eleven weeks later. The assassin was 
Charles Guiteau, a disappointed office 
seeker who was probably insane. On the 
death of Garfield the Vice-President, 
Chester A. Arthur, succeeded to the 
Presidency (September 19, 1881). 

407. Civil Service Commission (1883). 
— The murder of the President by a man 
who had been an applicant for a Federal 
office turned the attention of the country 
to the evils of the spoils system. A Civil Service Reform 
League was organized to urge the adoption of the merit 
system; and in 1883 Congress was ready to listen to the 
popular demand for reform which was reinforced by the 
discovery of wholesale corruption in the postal service. In 
January of that year a Civil Service Act was passed which 
required a competitive examination of future applicants for 
certain classes of Federal offices. A Civil Service Commis- 
sion of three members was established to supervise the ex- 
aminations and oversee appointments ; and the President 




Chester A. Arthur 



CIVIL SERVICE REFORM 



361 



was empowered to extend the merit system to new classes 
of Federal employees as he saw fit. About 14,000 positions 
were placed under the operation of the law during Arthur's 
term, and in later years the merit system has been extended 
until it applies to about two thirds of the Federal offices. 

408. The Election of Cleveland (1884). — In their choice 
of a candidate to succeed President Arthur, the Republicans 
named James G. Blaine, who had 
been the leader of his party in the 
House of Representatives for many 
years and had served for a brief 
period as Secretary of State. His 
Democratic opponent was Grover 
Cleveland of New York. The Demo- 
cratic candidate had made an excel- 
lent record as governor of his state, 
and many Republican civil service 
reformers deserted their party to 
support him. He was elected by a 
very close vote, after a campaign filled with much abuse of 
both candidates. 

The new President was pledged to civil service reform, 
but his party had been out of power for a quarter of a cen- 
tury and was hungry for places. Though Cleveland gave 
way to some extent to the spoilsmen, his administration 
marked an advance over the practices of the past. 

409. Presidential Succession Act (1886). — Early in 
Cleveland's administration the death of the Vice-President, 
Thomas Hendricks, drew attention to the need of arranging 
for the succession in case of the death or disability of both 
President and Vice-President. Under the former arrange- 
ment the succession fell first to the President pro tempore of 




Grover Cleveland 



362 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 



the Senate, and secondly to the Speaker of the House of 
Representatives. But between the final adjournment of a 
congress and the organization of its successor these offices 
are vacant ; and, besides, Congress is often controlled by 
the party which is in opposition to the President and Vice- 
President. With the purpose of insuring that the succes- 
sion should not fail and that it should remain within the 
President's party, the Presidential Succession Act of 1886 
provided that in the case of the death or disability of both 
President and Vice-President the Secretary of State should 
succeed and then other members of the Cabinet in turn in 
case of necessity. 

410. The Tariff Question. — President Cleveland made 
it his business to bring the tariff question sharply before 
the country and tried to bring about a reduction of the high 
protective duties that had been imposed during the Civil 
War. The opponents of the war tariff argued that many 
American industries were so well established that they did 

not need the protection given them, 
and that the high duties were pro- 
ducing a great surplus of revenue 
which, they said, led to extrava- 
gance on the part of Congress. 
Cleveland did not succeed in revis- 
ing the tariff, but he made the tariff 
question the principal matter of 
debate when the presidential cam- 
paign of 1888 arrived. 

411. Harrison Elected ; the 
McKinley Bill. — On the issue of 
protection the Republicans defeated Cleveland for reelection 
and placed in the White House their candidate, Benjamin 




Benjamin Harrison 



CIVIL SERVICE REFORM 363 

Harrison, a grandson of the hero of Tippecanoe. The Re- 
pubhcans interpreted their success as a victory for a high 
tariff; and, in 1890, they passed the McKinley Bill, a 
measure which greatly increased the tariff duties. 

412. The Silver Purchase Act (1890). — There was much 
complaint that the tariff favored only the manufacturing dis- 
tricts of the country ; and, during the debates on the McKin- 
ley Bill, the Republican senators from the silver-mining 
states of the West demanded that something be done for 
silver or they would defeat the tariff measure. At first they 
asked for " free silver " or the coinage of all the silver that 
might be offered, but they finally contented themselves with 
the terms of the Sherman Silver Purchase Act, which com- 
pelled the Treasury to buy 4,500,000 ounces of silver a month 
and pay for it by issuing notes which were redeemable in 
gold or silver as the government might decide. 

413. Cleveland's Second Election. — In the campaign 
of 1892 Harrison and Cleveland again opposed each other 
as the candidates of their respective parties. The campaign 
was fought largely on the tariff issue and resulted in the elec- 
tion of the Democratic candidate, who received 277 elec- 
toral votes as against 145 for Harrison and 22 for General 
J. B. Weaver, the candidate of the People's Party. 

414. The People's Party. — Though dissatisfaction over 
the McKinley Tariff Law helped to defeat Harrison, an- 
other cause of his failure was the rise of a new national politi- 
cal organization, called the People's Party or Populists. Its 
candidate received over a million votes in the election, and 
a very large proportion of these were cast by former Repub- 
licans, especially in the West. 

The expansion of agriculture brought with it at this time 
a period of low prices for cotton, wheat, and other farm 



364 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

products. The farmers were anxious for relief from the hard 
times which had come upon them. Many thought that it 
was a scarcity of money that made prices low and that one 
way to get sufficient money in circulation was to permit the 
unlimited coinage of silver. Others denounced high freight 
rates as a cause of the farmers' sufferings and demanded 
government ownership of the railroads. There were many 
other conditions which were thought to need correction but 
were neglected by the old parties. 

Farmers and workingmen in large numbers became con- 
vinced that a third party was necessary, and in the summer of 
1 891 the People's Party was organized at Cincinnati. It 
held its first national nominating convention the next year, 
when it named General Weaver for the presidency. Be- 
sides demanding the free and unlimited coinage of silver, 
and government ownership of railroads, telegraphs, and 
telephones, its platform contained a plea for a number of 
reforms which have since been adopted. Among these re- 
forms may be mentioned a postal savings bank, a graduated 
income tax, the Australian ballot, and the direct election of 
United States Senators. 

415. The Panic of 1893. — Cleveland had scarcely taken 
up the work of the presidency for the second time when a 
disastrous financial panic began. Almost from the begin- 
ning of its history our country has been visited about every 
twenty years by a panic. One was perhaps nearly due at 
this time; but its coming was probably hastened by the 
Sherman Silver Purchase Act and the renewal of the de- 
mand for free silver. The value of silver had fallen until 
the bullion in a silver dollar was worth only fifty cents in 
gold. Bankers and other lenders feared that the adoption 
of the unlimited coinage of silver meant that a " cheap " 



CIVIL SERVICE REFORM 365 

silver dollar would become the standard of value in place of 
the gold dollar and that loans made on a gold basis might 
be repaid in money of much less value. Under the cir- 
cumstances they hesitated to make loans ; gold was hoarded 
and the business community was deprived of money which 
was badly needed, with the result that the panic was very 
likely much worse than it would have been in the absence 
of the free silver agitation. 

Before the summer was far advanced hundreds of banks 
closed their doors and thousands of business concerns failed. 
Factories shut down and workmen in great numbers were 
thrown out of employment. " Soup kitchens " had to be 
opened for the relief of the unemployed, and throughout the 
following winter there was intense suffering in the larger 
cities of the country. 

rhe President called a special session of Congress which 
repealed the Sherman Purchase Act in November, 1893 ; 
though many western Democrats joined with the western 
Repubhcans and Populists against the repeal, and accused 
Cleveland of favoring the eastern money interests. 

416. The Pullman Strike (1894). — Events of the fol- 
lowing year made the President unpopular with another 
class of citizens. A strike broke out among the workmen 
of the Pullman Palace Car Company in Chicago; the 
Knights of Labor took up the workmen's cause and rail- 
road men refused to handle the Pullman cars. Much dis- 
order occurred in Chicago, where thousands of outside 
laborers had been attracted by the Columbian Exposition 
held the preceding year to commemorate the four-hundredth 
anniversary of the discovery of America. Governor Altgeld 
of Illinois did not think the riots of sufficient importance to 
call for the use of the state mihtia, but President Cleveland 



366 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 



sent Federal troops to Chicago on the ground that the 
strikers were interfering with the transportation of the 
United States mails. The men lost the strike, and organized 
labor became greatly embittered against the President. 

Later in the year Congress made Labor Day a legal holi- 
day, but during his term of office Cleveland did not regain 
the good-will of the labor world. 

417. The Presidential Campaign of 1896. — As the time 
arrived for the selection of presidential candidates in 1896, 
it was seen that the Democratic Party was divided and that 
there would be a contest between the friends and opponents 
of the President for control of the nominating convention. 
Western Democrats and many young men of the party in 
the East wanted an alliance with the People's Party, not 
only in support of free silver but in support of other demands 
which, as we know, the Populists had formulated. These 

men won control of the convention 
in Chicago and nominated for the 
presidency a young man from Ne- 
braska, William Jennings Bryan. 
The Populists, a few weeks later, 
indorsed the Bryan candidacy and 
the two parties joined m a demand 
for the free and unlimited coinage 
of gold and silver at the ratio of 
sixteen to one. 

The Republicans chose William 
McKinley of Ohio, whose name was 
widely known because of the McKinley Tariff Bill of 1890. 
The Republican platform opposed unlimited coinage of silver 
by the United States alone, but promised to work for inter- 
national bimetallism. 




William McKinley 



CIVIL SERVICE REFORM 367 

The campaign which followed the nominations aroused 
a high degree of interest and was of great educational value, 
for voters everywhere spent much time in studying the silver 
question. Mr. Bryan, an excellent public speaker, traveled 
nearly twenty thousand miles, addressing vast crowds in 
the principal centers of population and smaller groups from 
the rear platform of his car wherever his train stopped. 
Mr. McKinley remained at his home in Canton, Ohio, where 
he spoke to scores of delegations of Republicans, who visited 
him from nearly every part of the country. The Republican 
candidate was successful, receiving 271 electoral votes, 
whereas Bryan received only 176. 

418. The Dingley Tariff. — Though elected on the money 
issue, the new administration at once turned its attention 
to tariff legislation. The manufacturing interests of the 
country had contributed generously to the McKinley cam- 
paign fund, and a special session of Congress, called in 
1897, revised the tariff for their benefit, increasing the pro- 
tection afforded to many industries. The revision is known 
as the Dingley Tariff; Nelson Dingley, Chairman of the 
Committee of Ways and Means, having directed its passage 
through the House of Representatives. 

419. The " High Cost of Living." — The " hard times " 
which followed the panic of 1893 were passing away by the 
time McKinley was maugurated. Good crops in the West 
aided the farmers, and the opening of great gold mines in 
Alaska at the end of 1896 and in the following year enor- 
mously increased the amount of money in circulation, thus 
putting an end to the agitation for more money, whether 
silver or other kind. Prices of food and other necessaries 
of life began to advance rapidly and by the end of the cen- 
tury people were complaining of the high cost of living. 



368 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

Vocabulary 
pro tempore antagonism bimetallism bullion 

Questions 

I. Why was President Hayes not renominated ? 2. Explain the 
phrase "sixteen to one." 3. Review your information about "green- 
backs." 4. How did the assassination of Garfield affect the spoils and 
merit systems .? 5. Can you name a class of Federal employees who come 
under the civil service ? 6. How did the two parties stand on the tariff 
question in 1888 ? 7. What were the causes of the panic of 1893 ? 8. 
Give both sides of the main issue in the campaign of 1896. 



CHAPTER XXIV 
THE UNITED STATES BECOMES A WORLD POWER 

The Administration of McKinley, and the First 
Administration of Roosevelt 

420. The Venezuelan Boundary Dispute. — It fell to the 
McKinley administration to bring to an end a controversy 
with England which had arisen during Cleveland's term of 
office and, for a brief period, had threatened war between 
the two countries. A long-standing difficulty between the 
British government and Venezuela over the boundary 
separating the South American Republic from British 
Guiana, led to a serious dispute in 1895, and Venezuela 
appealed to the United States for aid. President Cleveland 
urged the British authorities to arbitrate, and explained 
that the United States had never abandoned its special 
interest in the affairs of the Western Continent, which inter- 
est had been asserted in the Monroe Doctrine. The British 
government denied that the Monroe Doctrine retained 
any binding force and refused to arbitrate at Cleveland's 
request. The President thereupon (December, 1895) sent 
to Congress a message in which he asked for an American 
commission to locate the true boundary, and made it plain 
that Great Britain might choose between the American 
arrangement and war. When the matter became pubhc 
the British Parliament and people did not uphold their 
2 B 369 



370 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 



government in its refusal to arbitrate; and in 1897, after 
Cleveland left office, an international commission was 
organized to settle the Venezuelan dispute, and in 1899 the 
matter was finally disposed of. 

Many found fault with President Cleveland for threatening 
war over what appeared to be a small matter, but in general 
the country upheld him. His action did much to promote 
the idea of international arbitration, and it led to the recogni- 
tion of the growing influence of the United States in the 
affairs of the world. 








The Government Building, Honolulu, at the Time of the Annexation of 
THE Hawaiian Islands 

421. Annexation of Hawaii (1898). — During the second 
half of the nineteenth century, American sugar growers ac- 
quired large interests in the Hawaiian Islands, and in 1893 a 



THE UNITED STATES BECOMES A WORLD POWER 371 

movement to annex the islands to the United States attained 
considerable importance ; but Cleveland refused his consent 
and the movement failed for the time. In 1898, however, 
when the war with Spain had increased our interest in the 
Pacific, the Republic of Hawaii was annexed and in 1900 
was organized as a Territory of the United States. 

War with Spain, 1898 

422. The Cuban Rebellion. — After the successful revolt 
of her colonies in the first quarter of the nineteenth century, 
Spain retained of her once great American Empire only Cuba 
and Porto Rico. Cuba, which had engaged in many revolts, 
rebelled once more in 1895. The rebels complained that 
they were overtaxed, that they had no self-government, 
and that the offices were held largely by Spaniards. The 
war, which continued for several years, was brutally con- 
ducted on both sides and much sympathy was aroused in 
the United States for the sufferings of the Cubans. At 
the same time important business interests which had in- 
vested in the Cuban sugar industry urged American inter- 
vention, hoping later to see Cuba annexed to the United 
States. 

423. Destruction of the Maine; War Begins. — President 
McKinley asked the Spanish government to bring the war to 
a close and grant self-government to the Cubans. He was 
on the point of success when the battleship Maine, which 
had been sent to protect American citizens in Cuba, was 
blown up in Havana harbor (February 15, 1898). A portion 
of the press spread the impression that the Spanish govern- 
ment was responsible for the explosion, and American public 
opinion, inflamed by the cry " Remember the Maine ! ", de- 
manded armed intervention. 



372 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 



Though Spain, in the following weeks, gave way to every 
demand of McKinley, he fell in with the popular desire for 
Cuban independence and asked Congress for authority to 
intervene. Congress was eager for action, and on April 21, 
1898, the Spanish War began. 

424. The Battle of Manila. — When war came the Navy 
was ready, largely through the foresight of Theodore 

Roosevelt, the As- 
sistant Secretary of 
the Navy. The At- 
lantic fleet was given 
the task of block- 
ading Cuba to pre- 
vent the coming of 
reinforcements from 
Spain, while a Pacific 
squadron, which was 
at Hong Kong under 
the command of 
Commodore George 
Dewey, was ordered to the Philip- 
pine Islands to destroy the Spanish 
fleet in the Pacific. Dewey entered 
Manila Bay May i, and in a few 
hours' fighting the superior gunnery 
of the Americans overwhelmed the Spanish fleet. Troops 
from the United States arrived in June and July ; and, on 
August 13, the city of Manila was occupied by the Amer- 
ican forces. 

425. The Blockade of Santiago. — Toward the end of 
April a Spanish fleet commanded by Admiral Cervera left 
the Cape Verde Islands for America. The people of the 




The Philippine Islands 



THE UNITED STATES BECOMES A WORLD POWER 373 



Atlantic coast feared that the Spanish Admiral's purpose was 
a bombardment of their cities ; but the officers of the Navy 
were convinced that he would make for a Cuban port to coal 
his vessels. Naval opinion was correct, for Cervera entered 
the harbor of Santiago near the eastern end of Cuba May 
19; the American fleet arrived some days later and under 
the direction of Admiral Sampson established an effective 
blockade. One of Sampson's vessels, the battleship Oregon^ 
had made a voyage of 14,000 miles from San Francisco 
around South America to take part in the work of the fleet. 
426. Santiago Attacked by Land. — At the outbreak of 
the war the strength of the American army was 25,000 men^ 



THE 
SANTIAGO 
CAMPAIGN 




CARIBBEAN 



but even this small force was poorly equipped for operations 
outside the United States. With the coming of war the 
regular army was enlarged to 62,000 men, and over 200,000 
volunteers were taken into service. 

Admiral Sampson asked for a land force to cooperate with 
the fleet. Before the end of June, 16,000 men under General 
William Shafter disembarked a few miles east of Santiago 
and began their advance on the city. On July i they took 



374 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

El Caney and San Juan hill, positions which gave them 
control of the main road to Santiago from the east, and 
within a week the city was besieged from all sides. 

The army suffered much hardship on account of the bad 
management of the War Department. The men were sent 
to a tropical region with the heavy winter clothing of the 
regular army ; the food supply was irregular and the sanitary 
arrangements very inadequate. Malaria, yellow fever, and 
other ills attacked the troops, many of whom died from 
diseases or were permanently disabled. 

427. Destruction of the Spanish Fleet. — Santiago sur- 
rendered on July 17 but, meanwhile. Admiral Cervera, 
Fearing capture, had decided to leave the harbor. On July 
3 he attempted to escape, but was unable to elude the 
watchful American squadron outside and within a few 
hours his entire fleet was put out of action. The Spanish 
gunnery was much inferior to that of the Americans, whose 
ships came through the fight without injury and with the 
loss of one man killed and one wounded. 

428. The Treaty of Paris. — With the destruction of her 
fleet Spain was placed beyond the hope of reinforcing her 
armies in Cuba and knew that she must yield. Preliminary 
arrangements for peace were made August 12, the day before 
the capture of Manila; and on December 10 the Treaty of 
Paris brought the war formally to a close. By its terms 
Cuba was given its independence, but was to remain tem- 
porarily under American control. Porto Rico, which had 
been occupied in July by an army under General Miles, was 
transferred to the United States. The island of Guam in 
the Ladrone group also was given up by Spain, and the 
Philippine Islands were sold to the United States for 
$20,000,000. 



THE UNITED STATES BECOMES A WORLD POWER 375 

429. Our Relations with Cuba. — At the beginning of the 
Spanish War the United States pledged itself to withdraw 
from Cuba when that island became independent of Spain 
and was able to set up a government of its own. The pledge 
was kept, and, when the newly organized Republic of Cuba 
chose Thomas Estrada Palma as its first President, the 
American military control of the island came to an end, May 
20, 1902. One noteworthy result of the American occupa- 
tion was the removal of the scourge of yellow fever through 
the discovery by army surgeons that the dread disease is 
transmitted only by the mosquito. The discovery has 
proved of wonderful value throughout the tropics. 

Disorder broke out once more in Cuba in 1906, and for 
three years the United States was compelled to assume the 
administration of Cuban affairs. Since 1909 the Cuban Re- 
public has made considerable progress in orderly government. 

430. The Philippines under American Rule. — When the 
American forces reached the Philippines, they found the 
natives anxious to throw off" Spanish rule and for a time the 
Filipino insurgents and the Americans joined forces against 
the Spaniards. But as it became evident that the United 
States intended to retain control of the islands, the Filipinos 
assumed a hostile attitude and in February, 1899, attacked 
the American army in Manila. The struggle, thus begun, 
went on for nearly three years, during which the United 
States steadily extended its military control throughout 
the islands. 

For some time after the American occupation the civil 
government of the islands was intrusted to a Philippine 
Commission, at the head of which, for a number of years, 
was William H. Taft, afterwards President of the United 
States. Under the Commission's direction thirty-five prov- 



376 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

inces were created for administrative purposes, and a begin- 
ning was made in extending self-government to the Christian 
inhabitants of the islands, who numbered 7,000,000 in a 
total population of 7,600,000. In 1902 an Act of Congress 
provided for a census to be taken and authorized the estab- 
lishment of a Philippine legislative assembly to consist of 
two houses, the lower house to be elected by Filipinos and 
the upper house to be the Philippine Commission. The 
first election was held in 1907, when somewhat more than 
100,000 Filipinos were entitled to vote. In the lower house 
of the assembly the Filipinos divided into two parties, one 
anxious for immediate independence and the other wiUing 
to remain under American authority. 

From the time of Magellan's visit to the Philippines, 
Catholic missionaries had undertaken the Christianization 
of the FiHpinos, who are the only Oriental people that have 
become predominantly Christian. 

Under American rule a great deal of money has been 
expended in making improvements in sanitation, in fostering 
education, and in developing the resources of the country. 
The products of the islands were not given free access to 
American markets, though in 1909 hemp and a limited 
amount of sugar and tobacco "were admitted free of duty and 
in 191 3 further concessions were made. 

431. The Second Election of McKinley (1900). — Many 
persons in the United States opposed the retention of the 
Philippines and attacked the McKinley administration for 
what they called its policy of imperialism and expansion. 
The Republicans renominated the President in the cam- 
paign of 1900, and the Democrats again nominated Mr. 
Bryan. " Imperialism " was the chief subject of discussion 
as the election approached, and the American people showed 



THE UNITED STATES BECOMES A WORLD POWER 377 




at the polls that they were favorable to the McKinley policy 
of expansion. The President received 292 electoral votes 
and Mr. Bryan 155. 

432. The Murder of McKinley; Roosevelt Becomes 
President. — President McKinley had completed but a 
few months of his second term when 
he was shot down by an insane 
anarchist while attending the Pan- 
American Exposition at Buffalo. 
After lingering for a few days he 
died, September 14, 1901. In the 
presence of death the enmities of ^, 
politics were forgotten and the whole { 
country mourned the loss of the 
kindly gentleman who had been its ^ 

President Theodore Roosevelt 

Theodore Roosevelt, the Vice-President, who now suc- 
ceeded to the presidency, although only forty-three years of 
age had already distinguished himself in many fields. As a 
young man just out of college he became known as a re- 
former in the New York legislature. Later he was appointed 
by President Harrison as Civil Service Commissioner, and 
in that office did much to extend the use of the merit system 
in making Federal appointments. As already noted, he 
was Assistant Secretary of the Navy before the outbreak 
of the Spanish War and had brought the sea forces of the 
nation to a high state of efficiency. He resigned from the 
Navy Department to help organize a cavalry regiment for 
service in Cuba and later became its colonel. This regi- 
ment, popularly known as the " Rough Riders," though it 
served on foot in Cuba, took a prominent part in the fighting 
at Santiago. Colonel Roosevelt returned home to be elected 



378 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

Governor of New York in 1898, and two years later he was 
chosen Vice-President of the United States. In the midst of 
his very active Hfe he had found time to pubhsh numerous 
books, especially in the field of American history. 

433. The Panama Canal. — The long voyage of the 
Oregon in the early days of the Spanish war renewed American 
interest in an interoceanic waterway, and it fell to President 
Roosevelt to prepare the way for the building of the Panama 
Canal. Under the terms of the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty of 
1850, the United States would have to share with Great 
Britain the control of any canal it might build on the 
Isthmus ; but the American people now insisted on complete 
American control of the proposed waterway and asked for 
the abrogation of the old treaty. In November, 1901, 
John Hay, Roosevelt's Secretary of State, secured a new 
treaty from Lord Pauncefote, the British Ambassador at 
Washington, by which Great Britain gave up her former 
rights. 

Having settled the British claims, the United States 
undertook to secure the right of way for the canal. Two 
routes were considered, one across Nicaragua, the other at 
Panama. Opinion favored the Panama route, where a 
French company, which had begun work in 1883 and had 
sunk many millions of dollars in the enterprise, was anxious to 
sell its rights for ^40,000,000. Colombia, to which Panama 
belonged, also seemed willing to lease the necessary ground 
for the canal ; but, after negotiations which continued 
throughout 1902, the terms offered by the United States 
were rejected by the Colombian Congress. 

The people of Panama were anxious to see the work of 
digging begin and in November, 1903, revolted against 
Colombia and set up the Republic of Panama. President 



THE UNITED STATES BECOMES A WORLD POWER 379 



Roosevelt at once recognized the new Republic and interfered 
by force to prevent Colombia from putting down the revolt. 
The Panama Republic ceded to the United States a strip of 
land ten miles wide extending across the Isthmus, for which 
they were to be paid $10,000,000 down and $2,500,000 a 
year, beginning in 1913. 

In May, 1904, the United States began the work of exca- 
vation, which was pushed forward vigorously to completion. 



■rfffi. 

















Gatun Lock, Panama Canal 

The canal was ready for use in 1914, and the next year its 
formal opening was celebrated by the Panama-Pacific 
Exposition at San Francisco. 

434. International Arbitration ; the Pious Fund. — 
Besides the negotiations with Colombia and Panama 
other diplomatic questions of importance occupied the 
attention of President Roosevelt. In 1902, under his 
direction, the United States brought before the Permanent 



380 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

Court of Arbitration of The Hague, established by the 
nations of the world in 1899, the first case it was called 
upon to decide, a case relating to the Pious Fund of the 
Californias. The Pious Fund consisted of moneys collected 
in Mexico about the year 1700, the interest of which was to 
be used for the support of Catholic missions in Upper and 
Lower California. In 1842 the Mexican government 
took over the Pious Fund and, when Upper California 
became a part of the United States, had ceased to make 
payments from the Fund for the benefit of the missions. 
In 1869 the United States, in behalf af the Catholic bishops 
of California, asked Mexico to make an accounting. The 
matter remained in dispute until finally settled at The Hague 
(October, 1902), when the contention of the United States 
was upheld, and Mexico was required to pay up the past 
interest and continue the annual payments in the future. 

435. The Alaska Boundary. — The boundary separating 
Alaska from the Dominion of Canada was described in a 
treaty made in 1825 between Russia and Great Britain but 
was not surveyed at that time. When rich gold mines 
were opened in the valley of the Yukon and thousands of 
miners appeared in that region in 1897, a boundary dispute 
arose involving the control' of Skaguay and other seaports 
which offered the most convenient means of access to the 
new gold fields. In 1903 the dispute was given into the 
hands of a board of arbitration, which consisted of three 
Americans, an Englishman, and two Canadians. The 
English member was convinced that the American claims 
were sound, and the United States won most of the points 
in dispute. 

436. The Peace of Portsmouth (1905). — Through the 
good offices of President Roosevelt, representatives of 



THE UNITED STATES BECOMES A WORLD POWER 381 

Japan and Russia met in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, to 
conclude a treaty of peace (August, 1905) and to bring to 
an end the war which they had waged for control of Man- 
churia and Korea. Throughout the war American sym- 
pathy had been given to Japan, but the treaty of peace 
was not so favorable to that nation as her people had been 
led to expect and there was a disposition among the Japanese 
to blame the President for the failure of Japanese diplomacy. 
As a result much anti-American feeling was created in Japan. 

437. Chinese Exclusion. — In the gold-mining days of 
California the Chinese had begun coming in fairly large 
numbers to the western coast of the United States. An 
agitation on the part of American workingmen against their 
admission led to the Exclusion Act of 1882 by which Chinese 
laborers were forbidden to enter the United States for a 
period of ten years. At the end of that period a new act, the 
Geary Law, was passed enforcing the exclusion for another 
ten-year period, and finally, in 1902, the exclusion of Chinese 
laborers was extended indefinitely. 

438. Japanese Exclusion Demanded. — In the early 
years of the present century, Japanese immigrants arrived in 
considerable numbers and an agitation against their ad- 
mission developed on the coast as in the case of the Chinese. 
The anti-Japanese movement became specially strong in 
San Francisco, where, in 1906, the city school board ordered 
that Japanese pupils be taught in schools attended ex- 
clusively by Orientals. 

The Japanese government pointed out that under its 
treaties with the United States, Japanese citizens were en- 
titled to the same treatment as the citizens of other foreign 
countries, and asked President Roosevelt to see that Japanese 
rights in California were protected. In 1907 an agreement 



382 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

was reached by which Japan undertook to prevent the 
emigration of Japanese laborers to the United States, and 
San Francisco promised to permit Japanese pupils under 
sixteen years of age to attend the regular schools. The 
incident created a great deal of ill-feeling in both countries 
and for a time there was talk of war. 

439. The Navy Goes Round the World. — The war talk 
was still heard when President Roosevelt in December, 1907, 
started the entire fighting strength of the Navy from Hamp- 
ton Roads around South America'to the Pacific. When the 
ships reached the western coast of the United States, he 
ordered them to continue their practice cruise round the 
world. The fleet visited Australia and Japan and made 
its way home through the Suez Canal. 

Vocabulary 
arbitrate yellow peril 

Map Exercises 

On a large scale map of Central America, locate exactly the Panama 
Canal, and notice the direction a boat travels in passing from the 
Atlantic to the Pacific. 

Questions 

I. How did the Monroe Doctrine come up for consideration in 1895 ? 
2. In what way was the outcome of this affair remarkable? 3. What 
are the chief industries of Hawaii ? What is its greatest value at present 
to the United States ? 4. Was there sufficient ground for the Spanish War 
of 1898? 5. Did any good come from the war to us or our neighbors? 
6. Do not fail to notice the connection between the Spanish War and the 
building of the Panama Canal. 7. Have the Philippines prospered under 
the rule of the United States ? 8. Was our method of getting land for 
the Panama Canal strictly honorable? 9. What do you consider the 
chief value of the Canal to the United States ? 10. What important 
diplomatic questions were settled during Roosevelt's administration? 



CHAPTER XXV 

OUR OWN TIMES 

The Second Administration of Roosevelt and the 
Administration of Taft 

440. Roosevelt's Attitude toward the Trusts. — The 

Spanish-American War and its problems turned pubhc 
attention away from the trust question for a time, but the 
formation of trusts continued with vigor, the great business 
combinations becoming not merely more numerous but 
larger and more powerful. President Roosevelt was of 
the opinion that business concentration had come to stay 
and that the government should regulate the great corpora- 
tions rather than attempt to destroy them. Accordingly, 
in his first message to Congress, December, 1901, he asked 
for an administrative department to take up the regulation 
of the trusts. A little over a year later, February, 1903, 
Congress established the Department of Commerce and 
Labor in which a Bureau of Corporations was created with 
authority to investigate the trusts. 

441. The Anthracite Coal Strike (1902). — The Presi- 
dent's efforts at trust regulation brought him a great deal of 
popular support, and his popularity was increased by his 
interference in the great strike in the anthracite coal fields 
of Pennsylvania in 1902. The strike, which began in May, 
threatened a coal famine as winter approached, and the 
President felt that the situation called for his intervention. 

383 



384 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

In a conference at the White House between the mine 
owners and John Mitchell, the miners' leader, Roosevelt 
compelled the owners to agree to arbitration. The men 
went back to work and the next spring a commission ap- 
pointed by the President awarded them a ten per cent 
increase in wages. 

442. Election of Roosevelt (1904). — Though opposed 
for his attitude toward the trusts and labor by many business 
men who were prominent in his own party, Roosevelt was 
nominated for the Presidency in 1904. His Democratic 
opponent was Alton B. Parker of New York. The personal 
popularity of the President won him much Democratic 
support, giving him the electoral votes of every northern and 
western state and of Missouri in the South. After his 
election he announced that under no circumstances would he 
be a candidate or accept another nomination. He regarded 
his first three and a half years in the White House as his 
first term and wished to conform to what he called the 
" wise custom " of limiting a President to tv/o terms. 

443. The Hepburn Rate Bill (1906). — Along with the 
discussion of the trust evil, there went a renewed interest 
in the abuses of railway management. President Roosevelt 
helped to direct attention to these abuses; and in 1905 a 
new investigation of the railroads was undertaken by 
Congress. Many unfair and dishonest practices were 
brought to light, which Congress, in 1906, sought to prevent 
by the passage of the Hepburn Rate Bill. This measure 
empowered the Interstate Commerce Commission to fix 
maximum rates and to compel the railroads to adopt uniform 
methods of bookkeeping. It forced the railroads to open 
their rate schedules for public inspection and forbade them 
to issue passes, by means of which they often gained the 



OUR OWN TIMES 385 

support of congressmen, judges, and other public officials. 
The Hepburn Act has enabled the Commission to prevent 
much of the discrimination in rates that formerly existed. 

444. The Pure Food Law. — Congress performed another 
important service in 1906 by providing for government 
inspection of meats and prohibiting the adulteration and 
misbranding of other food products and drugs. Investiga- 
tions had shown that the meat-packers conducted their 
industry in a most unsanitary manner, that poisonous 
preservatives were used by many manufacturers of food 
products and that adulteration and false labeling were 
common in the preparation of both foods and drugs for the 
market. A campaign of education undertaken by news- 
papers and magazines throughout the country stirred up 
popular interest in pure food and aided the government 
in its work for the preservation of public health. 

445. Conservation of Natural Resources. — In the early 
years of the present century the American people began to 
realize that the land and mineral and forest wealth of the 
country had largely passed into private hands, and they were 
led by the increasing cost of living to desire to take better 
care of the natural resources that remained under public 
control. President Roosevelt took a sympathetic interest 
in the demand for conservation and in May, 1908, presided 
over a White House conference at which members of the 
Cabinet, of the Supreme Court, of Congress, thirty-three 
Governors of states, and many private citizens were present. 
This gathering gave new vigor to the conservation movement, 
which seeks to prevent the waste of lumber, coal, and other 
products, to reclaim waste lands by irrigation and drainage, 
and to promote inland navigation and develop the country's 
wealth in water power. 

2 c 



386 



HISTORY Of THE UNITED STATES 



446. Oklahoma Becomes a State. — A part of the original 
region of Indian Territory, from which the Indians had with- 
drawn, was opened to settlement in 1889 and made into Okla- 
homa Territory the next year. The extension of railroad 
building in the Southwest brought many settlers into the 
Territory and a demand for statehood arose. In 1907 
Oklahoma, with which Indian Territory was united, was 
admitted to the Union. 

447. The Election of Taft (1908). — The Republican 
Party in 1908 nominated as its candidate for the presidency 

Roosevelt's Secretary of War, William 
H. Taft, who had formerly been 
Governor of the Philippines. The 
Democrats once more named William 
J. Bryan, who had been their candi- 
date in 1896 and 1900. The Repub- 
licans were successful, Taft receiving 
321 electoral votes and Bryan 162. 

448. The Payne-Aldrich Tariff 
(1909). — President Taft, immediately 
upon his inauguration, called Congress 
in special session to revise the tariff, 
in accordance with a promise made in the Republican plat- 
form. A great number of men inside the Republican Party, 
especially in the farming states of the Middle West, were 
opposed to the high duties of the Dingley Tariff and wished 
a substantial reduction of many of the rates ; but the Payne- 
Aldrich Tariff, which was adopted in the summer of 1909, 
failed to satisfy the demand, and they revolted against 
the leaders of their party who had forced the measure 
through Congress. President Taft, by praising the new 
tariff as the best the countrv had ever had, also won the 




William 1:1 . T/vn 



OUR OWN TIMES 387 

opposition of the Insurgents, as the dissatisfied Republicans 
were called. 

449. Progressive Republican League. — Other questions 
besides the tariff served to divide the Republican ranks. 
The Insurgents in the House of Representatives declared 
that too much power was exercised by Cannon, Speaker of 
the House from 1903 to 191 1, and they united with the 
Democrats to take from him much of his authority. Diffi- 
culties arose in the Department of the Interior over the 
National Forest policy of the Government and the control 
of valuable coal lands in Alaska. President Taft upheld 
his Secretary of the Interior, Ballinger, who dismissed 
from the service the Chief Forester, Gifford Pinchot, a close 
personal friend of Roosevelt. The Insurgents took up the 
defense of Pinchot while Roosevelt's friends denounced 
Taft for what they called an abandonment of the Roose- 
velt policy of conservation. The split in the Republican 
Party permitted the Democrats to gain control of the House 
of Representatives in the Congressional elections of 1910. 
The next year the Insurgents organized the Progressive 
Republican League for the purpose of defeating the re- 
nomination of Taft and making one of their own leaders 
President. 

450. Postal Savings Banks ; Parcel Post. — At the rec- 
ommendation of President Taft, Congress gave authority 
to the Post Office Department to open postal savings banks, 
beginning January i, 191 1. Two years later, January i, 
191 3, the Post Office began the operation of a parcel post 
system, under which the size and weight of packages carried 
by mail were greatly increased. 

451. The Children's Bureau; the Department of Labor. 
— In 1912 a Children's Bureau was created in the Depart- 



388 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

ment of Commerce and Labor for the purpose of promoting 
the welfare of children. It reports on the condition of 
children in factories, on the regulations made by various 
states to guard children's health, and on other matters 
pertaining to children. 

The next year the Children's Bureau and the bureaus 
relating to labor, immigration, and naturalization were 
removed from the control of the Department of Commerce 
and Labor and given into the hands of the newly created 
Department of Labor. The Secretary of the new depart- 
ment was empowered to appoint commissioners of concilia- 
tion to secure settlements of labor disputes. 

452. Arizona and New Mexico Made States. — The 
last of the Territories in continental United States, Arizona 
and New Mexico, were admitted into the sisterhood of 
states in 191 2. Though the last to be admitted to the Union 
these territories were among the first visited by white men, 
the Franciscan Friar Marcos traversing the region in 1539, 
and Coronado coming the next year on his famous expedition. 

453. Two Constitutional Amendments. — An income tax 
was levied in Cleveland's second administration, but the 
Supreme Court held it to be a direct tax and, therefore, un- 
constitutional unless apportioned among the states according 
to population. Many persons, however, continued to 
demand a tax on incomes, and President Taft urged a con- 
stitutional amendment permitting such a tax. The Six- 
teenth Amendment, designed to authorize an income tax, 
was proposed by Congress and accepted by three fourths 
of the states. It was declared a part of the Constitution 
February 25, 1913. 

Another constitutional amendment proposed during Taft's 
presidency was one providing for the direct election of 



I 



OUR OWN TIMES 



389 



United States Senators. It also was accepted by the neces- 
sary number of states and was declared a part of the Consti- 
tution May 31, 191 3, some weeks after Taft left office. 

454. The Presidential Campaign of 1912. — The In- 
surgent movement, which continued to grow during the 
second half of the Taft administration, was reinforced by 
Colonel Roosevelt, who, on his return in June, 1910, from a 
long stay abroad, joined the anti-Taft forces. For a time 
the Progressive Republicans urged the candidacy of their 
chief leader in the Senate, Robert La FoUette of Wisconsin, 
but in the early months of 191 2 they induced Roosevelt to 
offer himself once more as a candidate for the RepubUcan 
nomination. 

When the Republican convention met in Chicago in 
June, 191 2, it renominated President Taft after a bitter 
contest in which the friends of Roosevelt declared that they 
were defeated by unfair means. At 
the conclusion of the convention the 
Roosevelt forces decided to organize 
a new party. Six weeks later the 
Progressive Party, as the new organi- 
zation was called, nominated Roose- 
velt for the presidency. 

The Democrats, largely through the 
influence of William J. Bryan, chose 
as their standard-bearer. Governor 
Wood row Wilson of New Jersey, 
formerly President of Princeton Uni- 
versity. 

The division in the ranks of the Republicans gave the 
Democrats an easy victory, Wilson receiving 435 electoral 
votes, Roosevelt 88, and Taft 8. The Socialists who had 




WooDRow Wilson 



390 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

been growing in numbers for some years polled a popular 
vote of nearly 900,000. 

455. Tariff Revision. — In accordance with the party 
promises, President Wilson, shortly after his inauguration, 
called Congress in special session to revise the tariff. The 
Underwood Tariff, which became a law in October, 1913, 
effected a reduction in the rates on many articles and pro- 
vided for an income tax. 

This session of Congress was marked by the reversal of 
an old custom when President Wilson appeared before the 
Houses in joint session to read his message instead of sending 
it, as all the Presidents from Jefferson's time to his own 
had done. 

456. The Currency and Banking Law. — In December, 
1913, a Currency and Banking Law was passed, setting up a 
Federal Reserve Board with power to regulate the issue of 
Bank Notes and so to provide currency in larger or smaller 
quantities as the fluctuations in business conditions might 
demand. It is thought that the Currency and Banking 
Act will do much to prevent financial panics. 

457. Federal Trade Commission. — To aid in the regu- 
lation of trusts, Congress, in 1914, established a Federal 
Trade Commission with the power of investigation formerly 
exercised by the Bureau of Corporations and with the duty 
of preventing unfair competition. The same year the Clay- 
ton Anti-Trust Act was passed to strengthen the Sherman 
Anti-Trust Act of 1890. 

458. "Woman Suffrage. — A movement in favor of 
giving women the right to vote has been growing in recent 
years. Wyoming, upon its admission into the Union in 
1890, granted the full right of voting to women, Colorado 
followed three years later, and Utah and Idaho in 1896. 



OUR OWN TIMES 391 

It was not until many years later, in 1910, that another 
state, Washington, granted woman suffrage. In 191 1 CaH- 
fornia gave women the vote, in 191 2 three other states, 
Arizona, Kansas, and Oregon, followed her example, and in 
1 91 3 Illinois adopted woman suffrage, though in Illinois 
the right of women to vote does not extend to all the state 
offices. In 1914 Montana and Nevada joined the growing 
list of woman suffrage states. 

New York in 1917, and Michigan, Oklahoma, and South 
Dakota in 191 8, gave women the full rights of suffrage. In 
Nebraska, North Dakota, and Rhode Island women may 
vote for presidential electors and in other states they have 
the right of voting in school or municipal elections. In the 
presidential campaign of 1916 the platforms of both of the 
leading political parties favored woman suffrage and a 
vigorous movement has been started to secure a woman 
suffrage amendment to the federal constitution. 

459. Extension of Popular Government. — From the 
early days of our government it has been customary to 
submit to a popular vote the ratification of state constitu- 
tions and constitutional amendments. Likewise in many 
states questions of liquor licensing, important bond issues, 
and other matters of general interest have been decided 
by a direct vote of the people. In recent years there has 
been a growing sentiment in favor of an even wider exten- 
sion of popular control over legislation. Many states have 
adopted what are known as the rejerenduTYi and the initia- 
tive. Where the referendum is in use a certain number of 
voters (usually five per cent) by petition may prevent an 
act passed by the legislature from going into effect until 
ratified by the people. In accordance with the initiative 
private citizens may frame a bill and if they are sufficiently 



392 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

numerous they may have their measure submitted to the 
voters without waiting for the legislature to act. Another 
attempt to keep political power in the hands of the voters 
has been the adoption of the primary nominating election 
by means of which the voters in each party name their 
candidates for office instead of leaving the choice to a de- 
cision of party convention. The nominating election has 
been adopted by more than three fourths of the states. 

460. Democracy and America. — Besides seeking greater 
popular control of governmental affairs the American people 
are asking their government to serve them in new ways. 
Popular education is extended by the establishment of public 
libraries, night schools, and other means by which those who 
have passed the usual school age may continue to educate 
themselves for their own benefit and the general good of the 
community. Information gathered by the departments of 
the Federal government is put at the disposal of the people 
in a variety of ways. From the Department of Agricul- 
ture the farmer or fruit grower may secure information which 
makes his work more efficient. The mother of a family may 
have from the Children's Bureau of the Department of 
Labor advice about the feeding and care of children. Local 
health officers may make use of the United States Public 
Health Service, which has succeeded in recent years in sup- 
pressing yellow fever in the South, has aided in controlling 
other dangerous diseases, and which constantly seeks to 
educate the public as to the means of conserving the general 
health. It is because of these and many other services 
which aid in making life more wholesome that the Ameri- 
can citizen likes to say that his government is truly demo- 
cratic — not only a government by the people but a govern- 
ment for the people. 



OUR OWN TIMES 393 

461. Mexican Affairs. — The Wilson Administration 
throughout its course had to deal with a difficult situation 
in Mexico, where a revolution in 191 1 had driven from the 
presidency Porfirio Diaz, who had been in power for many 
years. His successor was Francisco Madero, who in turn 
was compelled to resign (February 191 3), and was succeeded 
by Victoriano Huerta. Four days after his resignation 
Madero was shot and it was charged that he had been 
murdered by order of Huerta. 

When Mr. Wilson succeeded to the presidency in March, 
191 3, he believed Huerta guilty and refused to recognize 
him as President of Mexico. A Constitutional Party, led 
by Generals Carranza and Villa, organized a new revolution 
which secured the sympathy of President Wilson, who 
(February, 1914) permitted the Constitutionalists to buy 
arms and ammunition in the United States. A few weeks 
later United States marines were arrested by the Huerta 
government at Tampico and when the full reparation which 
President Wilson- demanded was refused, the United States 
seized the Mexican port of Vera Cruz, which it held until the 
following October. Huerta resigned in July, but Carranza, 
who proclaimed himself President, was soon at war with Villa. 
Thus the anarchy of the country continued, with a consequent 
loss of life and property in which Americans suffered. 

Great pressure was brought to bear on President Wilson 
to intervene in Mexican affairs by armed force but he re- 
fused, hoping that Carranza could restore order. In 
October, 191 5, the United States and the principal coun- 
tries of South America recognized Carranza as Provisional 
President of Mexico. 

462. Danger of War. — On March 9, 1916, Columbus, 
New Mexico, where a small detachment of American troops 



394 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

had been placed, was attacked by Villa, who killed a score 
of citizens and soldiers and burned and looted a number of 
buildings. A punitive expedition was organized which 
within a few days entered Mexico " to capture Villa dead 
or alive," as it was said. The hunt for Villa was unsuccessful, 
and in June Carranza demanded the withdrawal of the 
American troops which had penetrated tw^o hundred miles 
into Mexican territory. President Wilson refused the de- 
mand and (June i8) called out almost the entire National 
Guard for service on the border. War seemed imminent, 
but in the face of the warlike activities of the United States, 
Carranza changed his mind and asked for a peaceful ad- 
justment of his differences with this country. The Amer- 
ican forces were withdrawn early in 1917. 

In spite of the promises of Carranza, a great deal of dis- 
order continued to prevail in Mexico ; murder and robbery 
were common and churches and other religious institutions 
were looted. The widespread destruction and confiscation 
of property held by foreigners created many difficulties 
between Mexico and foreign governments. 

463. Other Latin- American Relations and Purchase of 
the Virgin Islands. — In the early years of the present 
century President Roosevelt had found it necessary to 
protect the republic of Venezuela from its European credi- 
tors, particularly Great Britain and Germany, who wanted 
to seize the Venezuelan customhouses. For a similar reason, 
in 1907 he secured a treaty enabling him to take over the 
management of the finances of the republic of Santo Do- 
mingo, which occupies the eastern portion of the island of 
Haiti. Owing to continued revolutionary outbreaks in 
the republic, President Wilson in 1916 established martial 
law in Santo Domingo and appointed an American naval 



OUR OWN TIMES 395 

officer as military governor of the republic. In the same 
year the United States had to interfere by military force 
in the affairs of the republic of Haiti ; as in the case of 
Santo Domingo a treaty was secured which gave the United 
States supervision of Haiti's finances. 

Early in 191 7 the United States received from Denmark 
the Danish West Indies, or the Virgin Islands, for which 
the sum of ^25,000,000 was paid. One reason for acquiring 
the islands was to prevent their falling into the hands of an 
unfriendly power, and another was that the possession of 
their excellent harbors would aid in the naval defense of 
the Panama Canal. 

The relations of the United States with Mexico and other 
Latin American republics led to a feeling of fear among 
our Southern neighbors that the United States was bent 
upon acquiring territory at their expense, though President 
Wilson took pains to reassure them. Within a few days 
after his first inauguration he issued a statement declaring 
that it was our country's purpose to " cultivate the friend- 
ship and deserve the confidence of our sister republics of 
Central and South America." It was in accordance with 
this purpose that he invited the three chief South American 
republics, Argentina, Brazil, and Chile (the A. B. C. powers, 
as they were called), to meet in conference on the Mexican 
problem at Niagara Falls in 1914. 

The United States as a Neutral in the Great War 

464. War in Europe. — American interest in Mexican 
affairs was early overshadowed by the Great War which 
began in Europe in August, 1914. Many causes, with their 
roots deep in the past, helped to bring on the war, but its 



396 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

coming at that moment was associated with the murder 
of the Archduke Francis Ferdinand, heir to the Austrian 
throne. The Austrian government charged the neighboring 
kingdom of Serbia with having had a hand in the crime and, 
refusing to hsten to Serbian explanations, declared war 
(July 28, 1914), just a month after the murder. 

Such a declaration was bound to bring on a general war. 
Russia, long the friend of Serbia, made military preparations 
against Austria ; Germany, Austria's powerful neighbor 
and ally, answered by declaring war on Russia (August i). 
Two days later Germany was at war with France, the ally 
of Russia. The German leaders, believing that the quickest 
way to strike France was through Belgium, committed the 
great wrong of attacking that neutral country. Public 
opinion in England was stirred by the invasion of Belgium, 
and the British government, which already had pledged 
itself to defend France from a German naval attack, formally 
declared war on Germany (August 4). The struggle which 
the world had long feared had come at last and proved to 
be the most destructive which history records. 

465. Neutrality Proclaimed. — The United States had 
drawn millions of its people from the warring nations and 
naturally many in this country expressed sympathy for one 
side or the other in the conflict. The great mass of Ameri- 
cans, however, loyally followed the leadership of President 
Wilson who, on August 18, 1914, issued a proclamation of 
neutrality in which he asked his fellow-countrymen to be neu- 
tral in fact as well as in name, to be impartial in thought as 
in action. At that time it was generally felt that the United 
States should avoid taking any part in the great struggle. 

466. War Disturbs American Business. — But no matter 
how anxious the American people might be to remain mere 



OUR OWN TIMES 397 

spectators of the war, they soon found that it interfered 
seriously in their daily life. In particular, their foreign 
commerce was greatly disturbed. American trade with 
some of the European countries was practically cut off, and 
with others it was greatly reduced in volume. On the other 
hand, a vast demand arose for American manufactures of 
arms and ammunition, motor cars, and other products of 
use in modern warfare. Copper, zmc, and other mmerals 
rose in value, bringing marked prosperity to mine-owners 
and high wages in the mining regions. The closing of the 
Straits of the Dardanelles to Russian commerce led to a 
shortage of the regular supply of wheat in Western Europe 
and the people of that region were anxious to get larger 
supplies of American wheat. The price of wheat was greatly 
increased and the price of other food products rose also, 
benefiting the American farmer but resulting in a general 
increase in the cost of living. The enormous demand for 
ships to be used in the war trade raised ocean freight rates 
and injured many of the peace industries, which found it 
difficult to secure water transportation. 

467. British Interference with American Commerce. — 
The war raised diplomatic questions of grave concern to 
the United States as a neutral power. The great British 
navy soon established its supremacy and practically swept 
the commerce of its enemies from the ocean. It set up a 
blockade of German ports and sought, by a thorough search 
of neutral ships, to prevent contraband goods from reaching 
Germany. To the United States, however, it seemed that 
both in the matter of the blockade and in the searching of 
neutral ships, especially in its interference with neutral 
mails. Great Britain went far beyond her rights under 
international law. President Wilson protested vigorously 



398 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

but without great effect. In the summer of 1916 the British 
government " blackhsted " large numbers of American 
firms which, it said, were engaged in trading with enemies 
of Great Britain. British subjects were forbidden to do 
business with the firms on the blackhst. The President 
insisted that the blacklist was an invasion of American 
rights and Congress authorized him to retaliate against the 
commerce of foreign nations which prohibited the importa- 
tion of goods from the United States. 

468. German Submarine Warfare. — What proved to be 
a much more serious matter was the use which the German 
Empire made of the submersible torpedo boat, a new engine 
of war. Before the conflict was many months old, Germany 
announced that it would reply to the British blockade by 
sinking British merchant vessels wherever its submarines 
found them. Under the rule of international law, which 
had long been followed, such a policy would be unlawful 
unless the passengers and crew were first taken care of and 
that the submarine would usually be unable to do. In the 
pursuit of its policy Germany destroyed merchant vessels 
on which American passengers lost their lives. The most 
horrifying act of destruction was that of the Lusitania, a 
great British passenger ship, which was torpedoed ofi^ the 
coast of Ireland on May 7, 191 5, thereby causing the death 
of more than iioo persons, of whom over one hundred were 
American citizens. 

President Wilson at once protested against an act which 
deeply stirred the anger of the American people. In the 
following months Germany promised to modify its submarine 
policy to meet the President's demands. Nevertheless, 
a warlike spirit began to arise throughout the United 
States. 



OUR OWN TIMES 399 

469. National Defense. — The Mexican crisis and the 
Great War turned the attention of the country to the ques- 
tion of national defense, and in August, 1916, the Army was 
reorganized, provision being made for a large increase in the 
Regular Army and the creation of an important reserve 
force. A few weeks later Congress adopted a great naval 
building program providing for the expenditure within three 
years of ^600,000,000 for new ships alone, the greatest naval 
appropriation ever made by any country in time of peace. 

470. New Taxation. — To meet the expenses of the en- 
larged measures of defense Congress found it necessary to 
provide added revenues. The income tax was greatly in- 
creased, a graduated tax was levied on inheritances of 
$50,000 or more, a license tax was placed on the capital 
stock of large corporations, and the profits from the manu- 
facture of war munitions were heavily taxed. 

The war suspended the importation of German dyestuffs 
and American manufacturers were compelled to develop 
dye industries at home. To encourage the new industries 
increased duties were levied on dyestuffs. Congress also 
created a nonpartisan Tariff Commission to study tariff 
matters and advise Congress concerning them. 

471. Other Legislation of 1916. — The first session of 
the Sixty-fourth Congress, which lasted until September, 
1916, saw the enactment of much important legislation 
besides that connected with foreign affairs and national 
defense. 

The Philippine Commission was abolished and in its 
place a Senate chosen by the Filipinos was set up. 

Two laws of special value to farmers were the Farm Loans 
Act, giving governmental assistance in procuring long-term 
loans for farm improvements at comparatively low rates 



400 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

of interest, and the Federal Aid Road Act, offering the 
cooperation of the Department of Agriculture with the 
States in constructing rural roads. 

A Child Labor Act excluded from interstate commerce the 
products of mills and factories employing children under four- 
teen years of age. (This act was declared unconstitutional 
by the Supreme Court of the United States in 191 8.) 

A Workmen's Compensation Act provided sickness and 
accident benefits for Federal employees and benefits to 
dependents in case of death. A Railroad Eight-hour Day 
Law, to take effect January i, 1917, was passed to prevent 
a strike of 400,000 railroad trainmen throughout the country. 
By its terms an eight-hour day was established as the 
standard for reckoning wages of railroad employees operat- 
ing trains in interstate commerce. 

472. Presidential Nominations in 1916. — As the time 
approached for making the party nominations for the presi- 
dency in 1916, the new army and navy bills had not been 
passed and Colonel Roosevelt appeared as an active candi- 
date for the Republican nomination on a platform of " pre- 
paredness " and a more vigorous foreign policy. However, 
since the political wounds made by his withdrawal from 
the Republican Party in 191 2 had not been completely 
healed, the Republicans passed him by and nominated 
Charles E. Hughes of New York, Associate Justice of the 
United States Supreme Court. Roosevelt was nominated 
by the Progressives but declined to run and, with most of 
the Progressive leaders, supported the Republican candi- 
date. President Wilson was renominated by the Democrats 
without opposition. 

473. Reelection of President Wilson. — In the campaign 
which followed much attention was given to the President's 



OUR OWN TIMES 401 

foreign policy, his opponents proclaiming that it had been 
lacking in vigor, while his friends praised him because, as 
they said, " he kept us out of war." Other issues were 
debated, including the Railroad Eight-hour Law, the tariff, 
and woman suffrage. When the votes were counted, show- 
ing that the President had been reelected by a narrow margin, 
it was seen that his victory was due in considerable measure 
to the support of the Progressives, who refused to return 
to the Republican Party. On account of his attitude 
toward labor and his efforts to keep the country out of war, 
many Socialists supported the President and the vote of that 
party fell very much below what it had been four years 
previously. 

474. The President's Peace Move. — Not only did the 
President wish to keep this country out of war but he was 
anxious to act as peacemaker for the warring nations of 
Europe. Accordingly, on December 18, 1916, he sent to 
the belligerent governments a note asking for the terms upon 
which they would be willing to make peace. A few weeks 
later (January 22, 1917), in an address to the United States 
Senate, the President outlined his views of a just peace. 
If governments everywhere were based on the consent of 
the governed, if " freedom of the seas " and a limitation 
of armaments were secured, he declared that the United 
States would be willing to join a League of Nations to pre- 
vent future wars. 

475. Germany's Unrestricted Submarine Warfare. — 
Discussions of peace were soon interrupted by Germany's 
announcement that on February i, 1917, unrestricted sub- 
marine warfare would begin in the seas around Great Britain, 
France, and Italy. President Wilson at once gave his 
passports to Count von Bernstorff, the German Ambassador, 



402 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

and withdrew the American Ambassador from BerHn. He 
was still anxious to avoid war and expressed the hope that 
the German government would not challenge the United 
States by " acts of wilful injustice." 

That government, however, was willing to risk war with 
the United States and immediately began to sink merchant 
vessels on a greater scale than before. 

The President took steps to arm American merchant 
ships and directed the Secretary of War to make preparations 
for the conflict which seemed inevitable. The feeling of 
the country grew warlike, especially upon the publication 
of a letter from the German Foreign Secretary to the German 
Minister in Mexico proposing an alliance between Germany 
and Mexico in case the United States entered the war. The 
publication also of evidence showing a connection between 
German agents and attempts to destroy bridges, munition 
plants, and ships in the United States caused great in- 
dignation. 

The United States at War 

476. War Is Declared. — On April 2, 1917, President 
Wilson appeared before Congress, which he had called in 
special session, and asked for a declaration of war against 
Germany, the recruiting of an army of at least a half million 
men, the full equipment of the navy, and the raising of the 
necessary funds by taxation and loans. 

The President, in his address to Congress, reviewed the 
new German submarine policy which "without warning and 
without thought of mercy " for those on board had sent 
to the bottom " vessels of every kind, whatever their flag, 
their character, their destination, their errand." " The 



OUR OWN TIMES 403 

present German warfare against commerce," he said, " is 
a warfare against mankind." 

With but httle opposition, Congress, on April 6, formally 
declared that a state of war existed between the United 
States and the Imperial German government. (War was 
declared on Austria in the following December.) 

477. A War for Democracy. — In his address to Congress 
the President pointed out that the United States had " no 
quarrel with the German people. We have no feeling 
towards them but one of sympathy and friendship. It 
was not upon their impulse that their government acted 
in entering this war. It was not with their previous knowl- 
edge or approval. It was a war determined upon as wars 
were used to be determined upon in the old, unhappy days 
when peoples were nowhere consulted by their rulers, and 
wars were provoked and waged in the interests of dynasties 
or little groups of ambitious men." 

With regard to America's reason for entering the war the 
President declared that the United States was fighting " for 
the ultimate peace of the world . . . for the rights of nations 
great and small and the privilege of men everywhere to 
choose their way of life and obedience. The world must be 
made safe for democracy. ^^ 

478. The Government of Germany. — The President's 
declaration that the world must be made safe for democracy 
became a rallying-cry, not only in America, but also in the 
countries with which we became associated in the war. 
His distinction between the people of Germany and their 
government was seen to be of constantly increasing im- 
portance as the war went on until finally the German people 
overturned their government in order to secure peace. It is 
worth our while, therefore, to note in what way the German 



404 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

government was undemocratic and failed to represent the 
German people. 

The German Empire was made up of over twenty states 
(kingdoms, dukedoms, principalities, and city republics). 
By far the most important of these was the Kingdom of 
Prussia, whose king, by virtue of his office, was German 
Emperor. As Emperor he chose the Imperial Chancellor, 
the chief executive officer of the Empire, and through him 
administered the affairs of the country. The executive 
department, therefore, was beyond the control of the people. 
The imperial legislature was composed of the Imperial 
Council, whose members represented the rulers of the various 
German states, and of a lower house, or Reichstag, com- 
posed of representatives chosen by universal manhood 
suffrage. The consent of the Reichstag was necessary for 
the passing of imperial legislation, including taxation, so 
that in time of peace the popular branch of the legislature 
exercised a considerable power. But the right of makmg 
war was in the hands of the Emperor and Imperial Council 
and the Emperor was commander-in-chief of the army and 
navy. Hence war might be started whether or not the 
people wanted it. It was this undemocratic arrangement 
which President Wilson- had in mind when he made a dis- 
tinction between the people and the government of Germany. 

479. The House of Hohenzollern. — Such irresponsible 
power in a great state like Germany was likely to be danger- 
ous in any hands, but it was especially so in the hands of the 
Hohenzollern family, which had built up the Kingdom of 
Prussia by successful wars during three centuries. War 
had paid them well. In the eighteenth century, by forcibly 
annexing lands belonging to their neighbors, they made 
Prussia one of the great powers of Europe. In the nine- 



OUR OWN TIMES 405 

teenth century they created the German Empire and placed 
themselves at its head after a series of successful wars in 
which they overcame Denmark in 1864, Austria in 1866, and 
France in 1 870-1 871. 

In view of these warlike successes it is not to be wondered 
at that many of the leading men of the Prussian monarchy 
believed war to be a profitable enterprise. This was par- 
ticularly true of the great landed proprietors {Junkers) 
from which class came a large proportion of the army officers 
and who, therefore, had a professional interest in war. 
Others were led by the teachings of certain scientists to be- 
lieve that war was a necessary activity of mankind and a 
means provided by nature to rid the earth of the weak and 
unsuccessful and to give it into the hands of the strong and 
capable. War, they said, was " an indispensable factor 
in civilization." 

Americans, under the President's leadership, gradually 
came to regard the German government as a menace to the 
world on account of its great military power and its belief 
in the goodness of war. The people of this country entered 
the war with the conviction that they were not only defend- 
ing their rights upon the sea but fighting for the cause of 
liberty everywhere. This view of the conflict was the more 
readily grasped because just a few weeks before the American 
declaration of war the great despotism of the Russian czar 
had fallen and Russia, which was also fighting Germany, 
could at last be regarded as battling in the cause of liberty. 

The American Effort 

Having entered the war the United States made ready 
to bring its vast resources to the aid of those nations which 



4o6 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

were with the utmost difficulty holding the great German 
armies at bay. Men and ships, food and money, were to 
be provided until victory should be won. 

480. Raising an Army. — The number of United States 
troops available for service abroad was not large but the 
French military leaders suggested that the presence of even 
a small American army in France would have a heartening 
effect on the French army. In response to this suggestion 
a division of the Regular Army reached France in June, 
1 91 7, and was soon followed by regiments of engineers, who 
went to prepare docks and warehouses in French ports 
for the accommodation of the great American army that 
was to follow. General John J. Pershing, who had seen 
service in the Philippines and more recently in Mexico, was 
appointed to command the American forces in Europe. 

After a brief debate in Congress it was decided to raise 
the necessary troops by conscription and not to rely on 
voluntary enlistments. By the Conscription Act of May 18, 
1917, men between the ages of 21 and 30, inclusive, were 
made liable for military service. Under the provisions of the 
act nearly 10,000,000 men were registered in the following 
month. Of these 687,000 were called to service and entered 
the great training cantonments which had been erected 
hastily in various parts of the country. In the following 
months others were called until it became necessary (August, 
1 91 8) to lower the draft age to 18 years and raise it to 46 
in order to secure the needed numbers, but it was not 
necessary to call these men. Altogether about 4,000,000 
men entered the United States service during the war. 

481. Federal Control of Prices. — One of the most serious 
problems for the nations fighting against Germany was the 
shortage of food, due in large measure to the sinking of 



OUR OWN TIMES 407 

supply ships by German submarines. The United States, 
on entering the war, undertook to reheve the pressing needs 
of the peoples of Great Britain, France, and Italy. For 
that purpose the President was authorized (August 10, 
1917) to fix the price of wheat and to regulate the trade in 
foodstuffs. The government also undertook to fix the price 
of steel and other supplies which it needed for war purposes, 
and took over the control of the coal business of the country 
so that essential war industries might not suffer from a lack 
of fuel. 

The great need of ships led to the adoption of vast ship- 
building plans which within a year made the United States 
the largest builder of ships in the world. Before the end of 
1917 the growing war needs of the government compelled 
it to take over the management of the railroads of the 
country. 

482. Paying for the War. — One of the first cares of 
Congress after the declaration of war was to provide for 
the nation's financial needs in the great struggle. There 
was a very general demand that a large part of the war 
debt should be paid by taxation, especially by taxation on 
incomes and profits arising from war business. Congress 
responded favorably to this demand, but, in addition, had 
to authorize the Administration to borrow vast sums by 
the sale of interest-bearing bonds. During the war four 
immense " Liberty Loans " were raised, reaching a total of 
^17,000,000,000. The sale of War Savings Stamps also 
proved popular. 

483. The Work of Private Agencies. — In addition to 
the monies raised by taxation, the American people gave 
large sums to various private agencies which took care of 
the needs of the men in the United States service. The 



4o8 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

Red Cross, the Young Men's Christian Association, the 
Knights of Columbus, the Salvation Army, the Young Men's 
Hebrew Association, and other agencies ministered to the 
comfort and entertainment of the men in uniform, not only 
in the home cantonments, but at the front in posts of danger. 

484. The Espionage Law. — In order to prevent in- 
formation of military importance from reaching the enemy, 
and to prevent enemy agents or others in this country from 
interfering with the conduct of the war, Congress passed 
(June, 1 91 7) what was known as the Espionage Act, fixing 
heavy penalties for acts designed to aid the enemy. Many 
persons, both aliens and American citizens, were punished 
for violations of the act. 

The power of the Postmaster-general was used by the 
government to exclude from the mails newspapers and 
periodicals which were regarded as injurious to the country's 
cause. It was found that enemy governments had con- 
tributed money to various publications in the United States. 

485. Talk of Peace ; the President's " Fourteen Points." 
— In the summer of 1917, as the United States prepared 
to enter the war with all its strength, Russia practically 
withdrew from the war and in other countries a great weari- 
ness of war appeared. Austria made proposals of peace 
and France showed signs of exhaustion. It was in these 
circumstances that Pope Benedict XV sent a note (August, 
1917) to the belligerent powers, proposing a peace of mutual 
concessions and the adoption of certain principles which, 
it might be hoped, would lead to a just and lasting settlement. 
These principles included disarmament, an international 
league to enforce arbitration, " freedom of the seas," and 
the settlement of territorial disputes in accordance with the 
will of the peoples directly concerned. 



OUR OWN TIMES 409 

• President Wilson in replying declared himself in accord 
with the principles laid down by the Pope, but because, as 
he said, " we cannot take the word of the present rulers of 
Germany as a guarantee of anything that is to endure " 
he refused to entertain a proposal for peace at that time. 

Discussion of peace terms continued throughout the 
following months and on January 8, 1918, President Wilson 
delivered an address before Congress in which he outlined 
the program of the United States in " fourteen points " which 
at once caught the attention of the world and were, in the 
end, to become the basis on which peace was actually made. 
He declared that among the things which the American 
people wanted were an end of secret diplomacy, freedom 
of navigation on the seas " alike in peace and war," " equality 
of trade conditions " among nations, and the reduction of 
armaments. He then took up in detail various territorial 
settlements which he thought indispensable and concluded 
with a demand for " a general association of nations " to 
guarantee the rights of nations " great and small." 

486. America Arrives in Force. — While peace talk went 
on during the winter months the American army was being 
trained and, as rapidly as ships could be found, transported 
to Europe. It was a critical time, for the breakdown of 
Russia permitted the enemy to withdraw great numbers 
of veteran troops from eastern Europe and to concentrate 
them in France in preparation for a tremendous attack 
which he launched on the British and French armies in 
March, 1918. General Pershing at once placed the entire 
American army in France at the disposal of Marshal Foch, 
who had been agreed upon as commander-in-chief of all 
the armies fighting against Germany. By this time about 
100,000 American troops had been trained sufficiently for 



4IO 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 



battle action and in the fighting of the weeks following 
proved their worth. 

Early in May General Pershing secured the promise of 
numerous British ships, thus enabling the American forces 




American Soldiers in France, Washington's Birthday, Feb. 22, 191 



to be moved to France at the rate of a quarter of a million 
or more each month. By the middle of July the French 
and British armies, which had been exerting all their strength 
to stop the mighty German advance upon Paris, were 
sufficiently reenforced by American troops to strike back 
at the enemy. 

487. Victory in Sight. — On July 18 a great offensive 
was begun which proved to be a decisive turning-point of 
the war. The Allied and American armies were now reach- 



OUR OWN TIMES 411 

ing such a superiority over the enemy in numbers of men, 
in guns, in aircraft, and in suppHes of other war material, 
that they were able not only to compel a widespread re- 
treat of the Germans in France but to undertake offensive 
action on a large scale against Germany's allies, Austria- 
Hungary, Bulgaria, and Turkey. Each of these countries 
in turn was compelled to accept defeat. Bulgaria with- 
drew from the war on September 30; Turkey withdrew 
on October 31 ; and Austria, on November 4. 

An incident of the downfall of Turkey was the liberation 
of the Holy Land, an event especially pleasing to Christian 
people. Constantinople likewise again fell into Christian 
hands for the first time since the days of Columbus. 

The destruction of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy per- 
mitted the formation of a number of republics in the lands 
which had been ruled by the Hapsburg royal family for 
many hundreds of years. 

488. The Armistice is Signed; Overthrow of German 
Empire. — The threat of revolution at home, the defeat 
of her allies, and the growing military power of her enemies, 
particularly of the United States, led Germany to ask for 
peace and to declare that she accepted President Wilson's 
"fourteen points" and other pronouncements of his as a 
basis of negotiations. President Wilson referred the German 
government to the commander-in-chief of the Allied and 
American forces, General Foch, for the military terms upon 
which a cessation of the fighting might be secured. As a 
result, an armistice was signed on the morning of November 
II, 1918, and hostilities ceased. 

By the terms of the armistice the German fleet was sur- 
rendered, as well as the larger part of the German equip- 
ment in guns and aircraft, and the German army withdrew 



412 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

to the east of the Rhine River, which was to be patrolled 
by the Allied and American forces. 

Before the armistice was signed the German Emperor 
had abdicated and fled to the Netherlands. Within a 
week the other hereditary rulers in the various German 
states had likewise abdicated, thus preparing the way for 
the formation within Germany of a federated republic in 
place of the Empire. 

489. Gains and Losses of the United States. — In an- 
nouncing the signing of the armistice to the people of the 
United States President Wilson declared that " every- 
thing for which America fought has been accomplished." 
In the same enlightened spirit which had characterized his 
utterances throughout the war, he said : " It will now be 
our fortunate duty to assist, by example, by sober, friendly 
counsel, and by material aid in the establishment of just 
democracy throughout the world." 

Though the sacrifices of our country in the war were not 
as great as those of the more important European powers 
they were nevertheless serious. At the signing of the ar- 
mistice the United States had in its forces abroad nearly 
2,000,000 men, while almost as many more were in training 
at home. The Navy, which performed an important service 
in safeguarding the movement of transports and supply ships 
across the Atlantic, increased its numbers from 65,000 men at 
the beginning of the war to nearly half a million at its close. 

About 50,000 American soldiers were killed in action or 
died of battle wounds. Two hundred thousand others were 
wounded more or less severely. The heaviest losses took 
place in what was known as the Argonne Forest region, 
where the American forces began fighting on September 26 
and continued until the signing of the armistice. A consider- 



OUR OWN TIMES 413 

able portion of the losses was due to the reckless courage 
of the American soldiers in the face of danger. 

The enormous money cost of the war is seen in the rise 
of the national debt from two billion dollars at the beginning 
to twenty billion at the end of 191 8. Of this great sum 
eight billions were loaned to European governments and 
will be repaid in time. The war costs did not cease with 
the signing of the armistice, for an army of half a million 
men had to be maintained in Europe for some time and 
a great deal of money was required to return the other 
soldiers to their homes. Early in 1919 Congress passed 
a new revenue law, " the biggest tax bill in American his- 
tory," designed to raise six billion dollars the first year and 
four billion each year thereafter. 

This revenue measure was the last to draw large sums 
from the taxation of intoxicating beverages as, by the 
Eighteenth Amendment to the Federal Constitution, adopted 
in January, 1919, the manufacture and sale of such beverages 
was to cease after one year. 

490. President Wilson at the Peace Conference. — In 
his annual message to Congress, delivered December 2, 1918, 
President Wilson announced his intention to take part in the 
peace conference which was to assemble in Paris. He was 
received in France, in England, and in Italy with the utmost 
enthusiasm as the leader of the nation which had turned the 
tide of battle at the critical moment, and as the statesman 
who had outlined the democratic principles upon which a 
just and permanent peace might be erected. 



We have followed the story of our country from its dis- 
covery and early colonization to our own time and in im- 



414 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

agination have seen it grow from a few straggling settle- 
ments on the Atlantic seaboard to be a great nation ex- 
tending from ocean to ocean ; a savage wilderness has 
become the seat of a mighty civilization. While becoming 
rich and powerful our country has at the same time worked 
out successfully the world's greatest experiment in de- 
mocracy. Moreover, from Washington's day to the present, 
American success in the field of popular government has 
given hope to the oppressed of other lands and has promoted 
the spread of democratic ideals elsewhere. The founders 
and builders of our nation have made us the heirs of a mag- 
nificent inheritance and it should be our pride to hand it 
on undiminished to those who come after us. 

The boys and girls who are now studying American history 
will determine the character of our nation in the future and 
it will be their duty to preserve America as the home of 
democracy. 

Vocabulary 

adulteration conservation insurgent 

conciliation corporation unsanitary 

Questions 

I. How did President Roosevelt handle the strike situation in 1902 ? 
2. Give the substance of the Hepburn Act. 3. What progress has been 
made by the campaign for pure foods begun in 1906 ? 4. What is meant 
by the conservation movement ? 5. How did a split come about in the 
Republican party in 1910 ? 6. What is the value of the parcel post ? 
7. How many stars are there in the flag to-day ? Name the five newest 
states. 8. State the purposes of the sixteenth and seventeenth Amend- 
ments to the Constitution. 9. Can you explain the meaning of referen- 
dum? oi initiative? 10. What made it necessary for the United States 
to intervene in Mexican affairs during President Wilson's first adminis- 
tration } II. How were our differences with the Mexican government 



OUR OWN TIMES 415 

finally adjusted? 12. What action was taken by the United States in 
respect to the affairs of the Santo Dominican government ? 13. How did 
we secure possession of the Virgin Islands ? 14. What was the reason for 
inviting representatives of the chief South American republics to meet 
with representatives of the United States government ? What did this 
conference accomplish? 15. State briefly the steps that led to the en- 
trance of the United States into the Great War. 16. How did this coun- 
try mobilize its forces for the conduct of the war ? 17. What were the 
"fourteen points " ? 



APPENDIX 

THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE 

(Adopted by the Continental Congress, July 4th, 1776.) 

In CONGRESS, July 4, 1776. The unanimous declaration 
of the thirteen united States of America. 

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary 
for one people to dissolve the political bauds which have con- 
nected them with another, and to assume among the powers 
of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws 
of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect 
to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare 
the causes which impel them to the separation. 

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are 
created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with 
certain unahenable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty 
and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, 
Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just 
powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever 
any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, 
it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to 
institute new Government, laying its foundation on such 
principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them 
shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. 
Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long estab- 
lished should not be changed for light and transient causes ; 
and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind 
are more disposed to suffer, whUe evils are sufferable, than to 
right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are 
accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpa- 

417 



41 8 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

tions, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design 
to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, 
it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide 
new Guards for their future security. Such has been the 
patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the 
necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems 
of Government. The history of the present King of Great 
Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all 
having in dii-ect object the establishment of an absolute 
Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be sub- 
mitted to a candid world. 

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and 
necessary for the public good. 

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate 
and pressing importance, unless suspended in their opera- 
tion till his Assent should be obtained; and when so sus- 
pended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them. 

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation 
of large districts of people, unless those people would relin- 
quish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right 
inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only. 

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, 
uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public 
Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into comph- 
ance with his measures. 

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for 
opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the 
people. 

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to 
cause others to be elected ; whereby the Legislative powers, 
incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at 
large for their exercise ; the State remaining in the mean 
time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, 
and convulsions within. 

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these 
States ; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturali- 
zation of Foreigners; refusing to pass othersto encourage 



APPENDIX 419 

their migration hither, and raising the conditions of new 
Appropriations of Lands. 

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing 
his Assent to Laws for estabhshing Judiciary powers. 

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the 
tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their 
salaries. 

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither 
swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their 
substance. 

He has kept among us, in times of peace. Standing Armies 
without the Consent of our legislatures. 

He has affected to render the Mili,tary independent of and 
superior to the CivU power. 

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdic- 
tion foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our 
laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legisla- 
tion: 

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us: 

For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment, 
for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabit- 
ants of these States : 

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world : 
' For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent : 

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by 
Jury: 

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended 
offences : 

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neigh- 
bouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary govern- 
ment, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once 
an example and fit instrument for introducing the same 
absolute rule into these Colonies : 

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable 
Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Govern- 
ments : 

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring them- 



420 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

selves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases what- 
soever. 

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out 
of his Protection and waging War against us. 

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our 
towns, and destroyed the lives of our people. 

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign 
Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and 
tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & 
perfidy scarcely parallel in the most barbarous ages, and 
totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation. 

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on 
the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become 
the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall 
themselves by their Hands. 

He has excited domestic insurrections among us, and has 
endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the 
merciless Indian Savages, whose loiown rule of warfare, is an 
undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions. 

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for 
Redress in the most humble terms : Our repeated Petitions 
have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince 
whose character is thus marked by every act which may define 
a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people. 

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish 
brethren. We have warned them from time to time of 
attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable 
jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the cir- 
cumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have 
appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we 
have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to 
disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt 
our connections and correspondence. They too have been 
deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, 
therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our 
Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, 
Enemies in War, in Peace Friends. 



APPENDIX 



421 



TFe, therefore, the Representatives of the United States 
of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appeahng 
to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our 
intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good 
People of these Colonies solemnly publish and declare, 
That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be 
free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from 
all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political con- 
nection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and 
ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and In- 
dependent States, they have full Power to levy War, 
conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and 
to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States 
may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, 
with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, 
we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, 
and our sacred Honor. 

JOHN HANCOCK. 



* [New Hampshire.] 

JOSIAH BaRTLETT, 

William Whipple, 
Matthew Thornton. 

[Massachusetts Ba^j.] 
Samuel Adams, 
John Adams, 
Robert Treat Paine, 
Elbridge Gerry. 



[Connecticut.] 
Roger Sherman, 
Samuel Huntington, 
William Williams, 
Oliver Wolcott. 

[New York.] 
William Floyd, 
Philip Livingston, 
Francis Lewis, 
Lewis Morris. 



[Rhode Island.] 
Stephen Hopkins, 
William Ellery. 



[New Jersey.] 
Richard Stockton, 
John Witherspoon, 
Francis Hopkinson, 
John Hart, 
Abraham Clark. 



1 This arrangement of the names is made for convenience. 
States are not mentioned in the original. 



The 



422 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 



[Peymsylvania.] 
Robert Morris, 
Benjamin Rush, 
Benjamin Franklin, 
John Morton, 
George Clymer, 
James Smith, 
George Taylor, 
James Wilson, 
George Ross. 



[Delaware.] 
CiESAR Rodney, 
George Read, 
Thomas M'Kean. 



[Maryland.] 
Samuel Chase, 
William Paca, 
Thomas Stone, 
Charles Carroll of 
Carrollton. 



[Virginia.] 
George Wythe, 
Richard Henry Lee, 
Thomas Jefferson, 
Benjamin Harrison, 
Thomas Nelson, Jr., 
Francis Lightfoot Lee, 
Carter Braxton. 

[North Carolina.] 
William Hooper, 
Joseph Hew^es, 
John Penn. 

[South Carolina.] 
Edward Rutledge, 
Thomas Heyward, Jr., 
Thomas Lynch, Jr., 
Arthur Middleton. 

[Georgia.] 
Button Gwinnett, 
Lyman Hall, 
Geo. Walton. 



THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED 
STATES 



Preamble. 
Objects of 
the Consti- 
tution. 



We the people of the United States, in Order to form 
a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic 
Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the 
general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to 
ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this 
Constitution for the United States of America. 



APPENDIX 



423 



Article I. 

Section 1. All legislative Powers herein granted shall be Congress. 
vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist j^^^gg 
of a Senate and House of Representatives. 



Section 2. [1] The House of Representatives shall be com- 
posed of Members chosen every second Year by the People 
of the several States, and the Electors in each State shall 
have the Qualifications requisite for Electors of the most 
numerous Branch of the State Legislature. 

[2] No Person shall be a Representative who shall not have 
attained to the age of twenty-five Years, and been seven 
Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when 
elected, be an Inhabitant of that State in which he shall be 
chosen. 

[3] [Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned 
among the several States which may be included within this 
Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall 
be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, 
including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and 
excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.] 
The actual Enumeration shall be made within three Years 
after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, 
and within every subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Man- 
ner as they shall by Law direct. The Number of Represent- 
atives shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand, but 
each State shall have at least one Representative ; and until 
such enumeration shall be made, the State of New Hampshire 
shall be entitled to chuse three, Massachusetts eight, Rhode- 
Island and Providence Plantations one, Connecticut five, 
New York six, New Jersey four, Pennsylvania eight, Dela- 
ware one, Maryland six, Virginia ten, North Carolina five, 
South Carolina five, and Georgia three. 

[4] When vacancies happen in the Representation from any 
State, the Executive Authority thereof shaU issue Writs of 
Election to fill such Vacancies. 



House of 
Represent- 
atives. 
Term and 
election. 



Qualifica- 
tions — 
age, citi- 
zenship, 
residence. 



Method of 
apportion- 
ing repre- 
sentatives. 
(Part in 
brackets 
super- 
seded by 
Sec. 2 of 
Amend- 
ment 
XIV.) 
Census. 



Tempo- 
rary 
appor- 
tionment. 



Vacancies. 



424 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

Officers. [5] The House of Representatives shall chuse their Speaker 

and other Officers ; and shall have the sole Power of Impeach- 
ment. 



Senate. 
Election 
and term. 



Division of 

Senators 
into three 
classes. 



Vacancies. 



Qualifica- 
tions — 
age, citi- 
zenship, 
residence. 

Vice-presi- 
dent. 



Officers. 



Trial of 
impeach- 
ments. 



Section 3. [1] The Senate of the United States shall be com- 
posed of two Senators from each State, chosen by the Legisla- 
ture thereof, for six Years ; and each Senator shall have one 
Vote. 

[2] Immediately after they shall be assembled in Conse- 
quence of the first Election, they shall be divided as equally 
as may be into three Classes. The Seats of the Senators 
of the first Class shall be vacated at the Expiration of the 
second Year, of the second Class at the Expiration of the 
fourth Year, and of the third Class at the Expiration of the 
sixth Year, so that one-third may be chosen every second 
Year ; and if Vacancies happen by Resignation, or otherwise, 
during the Recess of the Legislature of any State, the Execu- 
tive thereof may make temporary Appointments until the 
next Meeting of the Legislature, which shall then fill such 
Vacancies. 

[3] No Person shall be a Senator who shall not have at- 
tained to the Age of thirty Years, and been nine Years a 
Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, 
be an Inhabitant of that State for which he shall be chosen. 

[4] The Vice President of the United States shall be Presi- 
dent of the Senate, but shall have no Vote, unless they be 
equally divided. 

[5] The Senate shall chuse their other Officers, and also 
a President pro tempore, in the Absence of the Vice President, 
or when he shall exercise the Office of President of the United 
States. 

[6] The Senate shall have the sole Power to try all Impeach- 
ments. When sitting for that Purpose, they shall be on Oath 
or Affirmation. When the President of the United States is 
tried, the Chief Justice shall preside : And no Person shall 
be convicted without the Concurrence of two thirds of the 
Members present. 



APPENDIX 



425 



[7] Judgment in Cases of Impeachment shall not extend Judgment 
further than to removal from Office, and disqualification to \^ cases of 
hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the ment. 
United States : but the Party convicted shall nevertheless 
be liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment and 
Punishment, according to Law. 



Section 4. [1] The Times, Places and Manner of holding 
Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed 
in each State by the Legislatm-e thereof ; but the Congress 
may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, ex- 
cept as to the Places of chusing Senators. 

[2] The Congress shall assemble at least once in every Year, 
and such Meeting shall be on the first Monday in December^ 
unless they shall by Law appoint a different Day. 



Both 
Houses. 
Times, 
places, and 
method of 
electing 
members. 
Time of 
meeting. 



Section 5. [1] Each House shall be the Judge of the Elections, 
Returns and Qualifications of its own Members, and a 
Majority of each shaU constitute a Quorum to do Business ; 
but a smaller Number may adjourn from day to day, and may 
be authorized to compel the attendance of absent Members, 
in such Manner, and under such Penalities as each House 
may provide. 

[2] Each House may determine the Rules of its Proceedings, 
punish its Members for disorderly Behaviour, and, with the 
Concurrence of two thirds, expel a Member. 

[3] Each House shall keep a Journal of its Proceedings, and 
from time to time publish the same, excepting such Parts 
as may in their Judgment require Secrecj^ ; and the Yeas 
and Nays of the Members of either House on any question 
shall, at the Desire of one fifth of those Present, be entei'ed 
on the Journal. 

[4] Neither House, during the Session of Congress, shall, 
without the Consent of the other, adjourn for more than 
three days, nor to any other Place than that in which the two 
Houses shall be sitting. 



Member- 
ship regu- 
lations. 
Quorum. 



Rules of 

each 

house. 

Journals. 



Special 
adjourn- 
ments. 



426 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 



Members. 

Compen- 
sation and 
privileges 
of mem- 
bers. 



Disabili- 
ties of 
members. 



Section 6. [1] The Senators and Representatives shall 
receive a Compensation for their Services, to be ascertained 
by law, and paid out of the Treasury of the United States. 
They shall in all Cases, except Treason, Felony, and Breach 
of the Peace, be privileged from Arrest during their Attend- 
ance at the Session of their respective Houses, and in going 
to and returning from the same ; and for any Speech or De- 
bate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any 
other Place. 

[2] No Senator or Representative shall, during the Time 
for which he was elected, be appointed to any civil Office 
under the Authority of the United States, which shaU have 
been created, or the Emoluments whereof shall have been 
encreased during such time ; and no Person holding any Office 
under the United States, shall be a Member of either House 
during his Continuance in Office. 



Bills and 
resolu- 
tions. ■ 
Revenue 
bills. 
Veto of 
President 
on bills. 



Section 7. [1] All Bills for raising Revenue shall originate in 
the House of Representatives ; but the Senate may propose 
or concur with Amendments as on other Bills. 

[2] Every BUI which shaU have passed the House of Rep- 
resentatives and the Senate, shall, before it become a Law, 
be presented to the President of the United States; If he 
approve he shall sign it, but if not he shall return it, with 
his Objections to that House in which it shall have originated, 
who shall enter the Objections at large on their Journal, 
and proceed to reconsider it. If after such Reconsideration 
two thirds of that House shall agree to pass the Bill, it shall 
be sent, together with the Objections, to the other House, 
by which it shall lilcewise be reconsidered, and if approved 
by two thirds of that House, it shall become a Law. But in 
all such Cases the Votes of both Houses shall be determined by 
Yeas and Nays, and the Names of the Persons voting for and 
against the Bill shall be entered on the Journal of each House 
respectively. If any Bill shall not be returned by the Presi- 
dent within ten Days (Sundays excepted) after it shall have 
been presented to him, the Same shall be a Law, in 



APPENDIX 



427 



like Manner as if he had signed it, unless the Congress by 

their Adjournment prevent its Return, in which Case it 

shall not be a Law. 

[3] Every Order, Resolution, or Vote to which the Concur- Veto on 

rence of the Senate and House of Representatives may be y?^°^^" 

tions. 
necessary (except on a question of Adjournment) shall be 

presented to the President of the United States and before 

the Same shall take Effect, shall be approved by him, or being 

disapproved by him, shall be repassed by two thirds of the 

Senate and House of Representatives, according to the Rules 

and Limitations prescribed in the Case of a BiU. 



Section 8. The Congress shall have Power [1] To lay and 
collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the 
Debts and provide for the common Defence and general 
Welfare of the United States ; but all duties. Imposts and 
Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States ; 

[2] To borrow Money on the credit of the United States ; 

[3] To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among 
the several States, and with the Indian Tribes ; 

[4] To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, and 
uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout 
the United States ; 

[5] To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of 
foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures ; 

[6] To provide for the Punishment of counterfeiting the 
Securities and current Coin of the United States ; 

[7] To establish Post Offices and post Roads ; 

[8] To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts 
by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the 
exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries ; 

[9] To constitute Tribunals inferior to the supreme Court ; 

[10] To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed 
on the high Seas, and Offences against the Law of Nations ; 

[11] To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, 
and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water; 

[12] To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of 



Powers of 
Congress. 

Taxation. 



Borrow- 
ing. 

Regulat- 
ing 

commerce. 
Natural- 
ization 
and bank- 
ruptcy. 
Coins, 
weights, 
and 

measures. 
Counter- 
feiting. 
Post 
offices. 
Patents 
and copy- 
rights. 
Inferior 
courts. 
Piracies. 

War. 



Army. 



428 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 



Navy. 
Land and 
naval 
forces. 
Militia, in 
service. 



Militia, 
organiza- 
tion. 



Seat of 
govern- 
ment, and 
stations. 



Supple- 
mentary 
legisla- 
tion. 



Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two 
Years ; 

[13] To provide and maintain a Navy ; 

[14] To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of 
the land and naval Forces ; 

[15] To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the 
Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Inva- 
sions ; 

[16] To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, 
the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be 
employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to 
the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and 
the Authority of training the Militia according to the discip- 
line prescribed by Congress. 

[17] To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatso- 
ever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) 
as may, by Cession of particular States, and the Acceptance 
of Congress become the Seat of the Government of the 
United States, and to exercise like Authority over all Places 
purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in 
which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, 
Arsenals, dock- Yards, and other needful Buildings ; — And 

[18] To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper 
for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all 
other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government 
of the United States, or in any Department or Office thereof. 



Limita- 
tions on 
powers of 
Congress. 

Slave 

trade. 

Habeas 

corpus. 

BiUsof 

attainder 

and ex 

post facto 

laws. 



Section 9. [1] The Migration or Importation of such Persons 
as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, 
shaU liQt be prohibited by the Congress prior to the Year one 
thousand eight hundred and eight, but a Tax or duty may be 
imposed on.such Importation, not exceeding ten dollars for 
each Person, v, 

[2] The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be 
suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion 
the public Safety may require it. 

[3] No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed. 



APPENDIX 



429 



[4] No Capitation, or other direct, tax shall be laid, unless 
in Proportion to the Census or Enumeration hereinbefore 
directed to be taken. 

[5] No Tax or Duty shall be laid on Articles exported from 
any State. 

[6] No Preference shall be given by any Regulation of Com- 
merce or Revenue to the Ports of one State over those of 
another : nor shall Vessels bound to, or from, one State, be 
obliged to enter, clear, or pay Duties in another. 

[7] No money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in 
Consequence of Appropriations made by Law ; and a regular 
Statement and Account of the Receipts and Expenditures of 
all public Money shall be published from time to time. 

[8] No title of Nobility shall be granted by the United 
States : And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust 
under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, 
accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any 
kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State. 



Direct tax. 



Tax on 
exports. 

Uniform 
comnier- 
cial regu- 
lations. 

Finance. 



Titles of 
nobility 
and 
presents. 



Section 10. [1] No State shall enter into any Treaty, Alli- 
ance, or Confederation ; grant Letters of Marque and Re- 
prisal ; coin Money ; emit Bills of Credit, make any Thing 
but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts ; pass 
any Bill of Attainder, ex post facto Law, or Law impairing 
the obligation of Contracts, or grant any Title of Nobility. 

[2] No State shall, without the Consent of the Congress, 
lay any Imposts or Duties on Imports or Exports, except what 
may be absolutely necessary for executing it's inspection 
Laws : and the net Produce of all Duties and Imposts, laid by 
any State on Imports or Exports, shall be for the Use of the 
Treasury of the United States; and all such Laws shall be 
subject to the Revision and Controul of the Congress. 

[3] No State shall, without the Consent of Congress, lay any 
Duty of tonnage, keep Troops, or Ships of War in time of 
Peace, enter into any Agreement or Compact with another 
State, or with a foreign Power, or engage in War, unless 
actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not 
admit of delay. 



Limita- 
tions on 
•powers of 
States. 
Specific 
prohibi- 
tions. 

Limita- 
tions on 
imposts. 



Prohibi- 
tions re- 
movable 
with con- 
sent of 
Congress. 



430 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 



Presi- 
dent. 
Term. 
Presiden- 
tial elec- 
tors and 
method of 
choosing 
President. 



(Part in 
brackets 
super- 
seded by 
XII 
amend- 
ment.) 



Article II. 

Section 1. [1] The executive Power shall be vested in a 
President of the United States of America. He shall hold his 
Office during the Term of four Years, and, together with the 
Vice President, chosen for the same term, be elected, as 
follows : 

[2] Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legisla- 
ture thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the 
whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the 
State may be entitled in the Congress : but no Senator or 
Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit 
under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector. 
[The electors shall meet in their respective States, and vote 
by ballot for two Persons, of whom one at least shall not be 
an inhabitant of the same State with themselves. And they 
shall make a List of all the Persons voted for, and of the 
Number of Votes for each; which List they shall sign and 
certify, and transmit sealed to the Seat of the Government of 
the United States, directed to the President of the Senate. 
The President of the Senate shall, in the Presence of the 
Senate and House of Representatives, open aU the Certifi- 
cates, and the Votes shall then be counted. The Person 
having the greatest Number of Votes shall be the President, 
if such Number be a Majority of the whole Number of 
Electors appointed ; and if there be more than one who have 
such Majority, and have an equal Number of Votes, then the 
House of Representatives shall immediately chuse by Ballot 
one of them for President ; and if no Person have a Majority, 
then from the five highest on the List the said House shall 
in like Manner chuse the President. But in chusing the 
President, the Votes shall be taken by States, the Representa- 
tion from each State having one Vote; A quorum for this 
Purpose shall consist of a Member or Members from two- 
thirds of the States, and a Majority of aU the States shall 
be necessary to a Choice. In every Case, after the Choice of 
the President, the Person having the greatest Number of 



APPENDIX 



431 



Votes of the Electors shall be the Vice President. But if 
there should remain two or more who have equal Votes, 
the Senate shall chuse from them by Ballot the Vice Presi- 
dent.] 

[3] The Congress may determine the Time of chusing the 
Electors, and the Day on which they shall give their Votes ; 
which Day shall be the same throughout the United States. 

[4] No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a citizen 
of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this 
Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President ; 
neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall 
not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been 
fourteen Years a Resident within the United States. 

[5] In Case of the Removal of the President from Office, or 
of his Death, Resignation, or Inability to discharge the 
Powers and Duties of the said Office, the same shall devolve 
on the Vice President, and the Congress may by Law provide 
for the Case of Removal, Death, Resignation, or Inability, 
both of the President and Vice President, declaring what 
Officer shall then act as President, and such Officer shall act 
accordingly, until the Disability be removed, or a President 
shall be elected. 

[6] The President shall, at stated Times, receive for his 
Services, a Compensation, which shall neither be encreased 
nor diminished during the Period for which he shall have been 
elected, and he shall not receive within that Period any other 
Emolument from the United States, or any of them. 

[7] Before he enter on the Execution of his Office, he shall 
take the foUomng Oath or Affirmation: — "I do solemnly 
swear (or affirm) that I wiU faithfully execute the Office of 
President of the United States, and will to the best of my 
Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the 
United States." 



Dates of 
elections. 



Qualifica- 
tions, citi- 
zenship, 
age, and 
residence. 



Presiden- 
tial suc- 
cession. 



Compensa- 
tion. 



Oath of 
office. 



Section 2. [1] The President shall be Commander in Chief Powers of 
of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the President. 
Militia of the several States, when called into the actual 



432 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 



Military, 
super- 
visory, 
and 
judicial. 



In treaties 
and in 
appoint- 
ments. 



Tempo- 
rary 
appoint- 
ments. 



Service of the United States ; he may require the Opinion, 
in writing, of the principal Officer in each of the executive De- 
partments, upon any Subject relating to the Duties of their re- 
spective Offices, and he shall have Power to grant Reprieves 
and Pardons for Offences against the United States, except 
in Cases of Impeachment. 

[2] He shaU have Power, by and with the Advice and Con- 
sent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two-thirds of 
the Senators present concur ; and he shaU nominate, and by 
and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint 
Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of 
the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, 
whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, 
and which shall be established by Law : but the Congress 
may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, 
as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts 
of Law, or in the Heads of Departments. 

[3] The President shall have Power to ffil up all Vacancies 
that may happen during the Recess of the Senate, by grant- 
ing Commissions which shall expire at the End of their next 
Session. 



Legisla- 
tive 
powers. 



Section 3. He shall from time to time give to the Congress 
Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to 
their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary 
and expedient ; he may, on extraordinary Occasions, convene 
both Houses, or either of them, and in Case of Disagreement 
between them, with Respect to the Time of Adjournment, 
he may adjourn them to such Time as he shall think proper ; 
he shall receive Ambassadors and other public Ministers; 
he shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed, and 
shall Commission aU the Officers of the United States. 



Liability 
to 

impeach- 
ment. 



Section 4. The President, Vice President and all civil 
Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office 
on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, 
or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors. 



APPENDIX 



433 



Article III. 

Section 1. The judicial Power of the United States, shall Judici- 

be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts ^^"*^- 
as the Congress may from time to tmie ordain and estabhsh. 

The Judges, both of the supreme and inferior Courts, shall Judges: 

hold their Offices during good Behaviour, and shall, at *^™^ ^^^ 

, . • ^ 1 • ri • /-( • compen- 

stated Tunes, receive for their Services, a Compensation, gation. 
which shall not be diminished during their Continuance in Office. 



Jurisdic- 
tion. 



Section 2. [1] The judicial Power shall extend to all Cases, 
in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution, the Laws 
of the United States, and Treaties made, or which shall be 
made, under their Authority ; — to all cases affecting Ambas- 
sadors, other public Ministers and Consuls ; — to aU cases of 
admiralty and maritime Jurisdiction ; — to Controversies 
to which the United States shall be a party ; — to controversies 
between two or more States ; — between a State and Citizens 
of another State ; — between Citizens of different States — 
between Citizens of the same State claiming Lands under 
Grants of different States, and between a State, or the Citizens 
thereof, and foreign States, Citizens or subjects. 

[2] In all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public 
Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shaU be 
Party, the supreme Court shall have original Jurisdiction. 
In all the other Cases before mentioned, the supreme Court 
shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, 
with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the 
Congress shall make. 

[3] The Trial of all Crimes, except in Cases of Impeachment, 
shall be by Jury; and such Trial shall be held in the State 
where the said Crimes shall have been committed ; but when 
not committed within any State, the Trial shall be at such 
Place or Places as the Congress may by Law have directed. 

Section 3. [1] Treason against the United States, shall con- Treason: 
sist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their definition, 
Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall 



Original 
and 

appellate 
jurisdic- 
tion of 
Supreme 
Court. 



Jury trial. 
Place of 
trial. 



434 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 



punish- 
ment. 



be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Wit- 
nesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court. 
[2] The Congress shall have Power to declare the Punish- 
ment of Treason, but no Attainder of Treason shall work 
Corruption of Blood, or Forfeiture except during the Life 
of the Person attainted. 



Nation 

AND 

States. 

Interstate 
comity. 

Interstate 
citizen- 



Extradi- 
tion of 
criminals. 



Fugitive 
slaves. 



Admission 
of new 
States. 



Govern- 
ment of 
national 
territory. 



Article IV. 

Section 1. Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each 
State to the public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings 
of every other State. And the Congress may by general 
Laws prescribe the Manner in which such Acts, Records and 
Proceedings shaU be proved, and the Effect thereof. 

Section 2. [1] The Citizens of each State shall be entitled 
to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several 
States. 

[2] A Person charged in any State with Treason, Felony or 
other Crime, who shall flee from Justice, and be found in 
another State, shall on Demand of the executive Authority 
of the State from which he fled, be delivered up, to be removed 
to the State having Jurisdiction of the Crime. 

[3] No Person held to Service or Labour in one State, under 
the Laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in Consequence 
of any Law or Regulation therein, be discharged from such 
Service or Labour, but shall be delivered up on Claim of the 
Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due. 

Section 3. [1] New States may be admitted by the Congress 
into this Union ; but no new State shall be formed or erected 
within the Jurisdiction of any other State ; nor any State be 
formed by the Junction of two or more States, or Parts of 
States, without the Consent of the Legislatures of the States 
concerned as well as of the Congress. 

[2] The Congress shall have Power to dispose of and make 
all needful Rules and Regulations respecting the Territory 
or other Property belonging to the United States ; and nothing 



APPENDIX 



435 



Protection 
of States. 



MENT OF 

Constitu- 
tion. 



in this Constitution shall be so construed as to Prejudice any 
Claims of the United States, or of any particular State. 

Section 4. The United States shall guarantee to every 
State in this Union a RepubHcan Form of Government, and 
shall protect each of them against Invasion ; and on Applica- 
tion of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legisla- 
ture cannot be convened) against domestic Violence. 

Aeticle V. 

The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall Amend- 
deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitu- 
tion, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds 
of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing 
Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all 
Intents and Purposes as Part of this Constitution, when rati- 
fied by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, 
or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the 
other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress ; 
Provided that no Amendment which may be made prior to 
the Year One thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any 
Manner affect the first and fourth Clauses in the Ninth 
Section of the first Article; and that no State, without its 
Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate. 

Article VI. 

[1] All Debts contracted and Engagements entered into, 
before the Adoption of this Constitution, shaU be as valid 
against the United States under this Constitution, as under 
the Confederation. 

[2] This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States 
which shall be made in Pursuance thereof ; and aU Treaties 
made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the 
United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and 
the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing 
in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary not- 
withstanding. 



Miscel- 
laneous. 
Preexist- 
ing nation- 
al debt. 
Suprem- 
acy of 
Constitu- 
tion, 
treaties, 
and na- 
tional law. 



436 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 



Oaths of 
national 
and state 
oflBcials. 



[3] The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, 
and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all 
executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States 
and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirma- 
tion, to support this Constitution ; but no religious Test 
shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public 
Trust under the United States. 



Ratifica- 
tion. 



Article VII. 

The Ratification of the Conventions of nine States, shall 
be sufficient for the Establishment of this Constitution be- 
tween the States so ratifying the Same. 

Done in Convention by the Unanimous Consent of the States 
present the Seventeenth Day of September in the Year of 
our Lord one thousand seven hundred and Eighty seven 
and of the Independence of the United States of America 
the Twelfth In Witness whereof We have hereunto 
subscribed our Names, 

G? Washington - 
Presidt. and Deputy from Virginia 

[and thirty eight members from all the States except Rhode 

Island.] 



APPENDIX 



437 



ARTICLES IN ADDITION TO, AND AMENDMENT 
OF, THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES 
OF AMERICA, PROPOSED BY CONGRESS, AND 
RATIFIED BY THE LEGISLATURES OF THE 
SEVERAL STATES PURSUANT TO THE FIFTH 
ARTICLE OF THE ORIGINAL CONSTITUTION. 



[Article 1 1] 

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of 
religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridg- 
ing the freedom of speech, or of the press ; or the right of the 
people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Govern- 
ment for a redress of grievances. 

[Article II i] 

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security 
of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, 
shall not be infringed. 



Prohibi- 
tions on 
Congress 
respecting 
religion, 
speech, 
and 
the press. 



Right to 
bear arms. 



[Article III *] 

No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house. Quarter- 
without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in ^°f ,?^ 
a manner to be prescribed by law. 

[Article IV ^ 

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, Right of 
houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches search. 
and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall 
issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirma- 
tion, and particularly describing the place to be searched, 
and the persons or things to be seized. 

' First ten amendments proposed by Congress, Sept. 25, 1789. 
Proclaimed to be in force Dec. 15, 1791. 



438 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 



Protection 
of accused 
in criminal 
cases. 



[Article V ^ 

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or other- 
wise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment 
of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval 
forces, or in the Mihtia, when in actual service in time of 
War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for 
the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb ; 
nor shall be compelled in any Criminal Case to be a witness 
against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, 
without due process of law; nor shall private property be 
taken for public use, without just compensation. 



Rights of 
accused 
regarding 
trial. 



[Article VI ^] 

In aU criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the 
right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of 
the State and district wherein the crime shall have been com- 
mitted, which district shaU have been previously ascertained 
by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the 
accusation ; to be confronted with the witnesses against him ; 
to have compulsory process for obtaining Witnesses in his 
favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence. 



Jury trial 
in law- 
suits. 



[Article VII ^] 

In suits at common law, where the value in controversy 
shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be 
preserved, and no fact tried by a jury shall be otherwise re- 
examined in any Court of the United States, than according 
to the rules of the common law. 



Bail and 

punish- 
ment. 



[Article VIII i] 

Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines im- 
posed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted. 

^ First ten amendments proposed by Congress, Sept. 25, 1789. 
Proclaimed to be in force Dec. 15, 1791. 



APPENDIX 



439 



[Article IX ^ 

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, Unenu- 
shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained n^^erated 
by the people. 

[Article X ^] 

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Con- Undele- 

stitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to sated 

. powers, 

the States respectively, or to the people. 



Article XI ^ 

The Judicial power of the United States shall not be con- Exemp- 
strued to extend to any suit in law or equity, commenced or *^°° °^ 
prosecuted against one of the United States by Citizens of from suit, 
another State, or by Citizens or Subjects of any Foreign 
State. 

Article XII 



The Electors shall meet in their respective states, and vote 
by ballot for President and Vice-President, one of whom, at 
least, shall not be an inhabitant of the same state with 
themselves ; they shall name in their ballots the person voted 
for as President, and in distinct ballots the person voted for 
as Vice-President, and they shall make distinct lists of all 
persons voted for as President, and of aU persons voted for as 
Vice-President, and of the number of votes for each, which 
lists they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the 
seat of the government of the United States, directed to the 
President of the Senate ; — The President of the Senate 
shall, in presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, 
open all the certificates and the votes shall then be counted ; 
— The person having the greatest number of votes for Presi- 
dent, shall be the President, if such number be a majority of 
the whole number of Electors appointed; and if no person 

1 First ten amendments proposed by Congress, Sept. 25, 1789. 
Proclaimed to be in force Dec. 15, 1791. 

2 Proposed September 5, 1794. Declared in force January 8, 1798. 



New- 
method of 
electing 
President. 

(To super- 
sede part 
of Art. II, 
Sec. 1, 
cl. 2.) 

(Proposed 
Dec. 12, 
1803. 
Declared 
in force 
Sept. 25, 
1804.) 



440 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 



have such majority, then from the persons having the highest 
numbers not exceeding three on the list of those voted for as 
President, the House of Representatives shall choose imme- 
diately, by ballot, the President. But in choosing the Presi- 
dent, the votes shall be taken by states, the representation 
from each state having one vote ; a quorum for this purpose 
shall consist of a member or members from two-thirds of 
the states, and a majority of all the states shall be necessaiy 
to a choice. And if the House of Representatives shaU not 
choose a President whenever the right of choice shaU devolve 
upon them, before the fourth day of March next following, 
then the Vice-President shall act as President, as in the 
case of the death or other constitutional disability of the 
President. The person having the greatest number of votes 
as Vice-President, shall be the Vice-President, if such number 
be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed, 
and if no person have a majority, then from the two highest 
numbers on the list, the Senate shall choose the Vice-Presi- 
dent; a quorum for the purpose shall consist of two-thirds 
of the whole number of Senators, and a majority of the whole 
number shall be necessary to a choice. But no person 
constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shaU be 
eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States. 



Abolition 
of slavery, 
(Proposed 
Feb. 1, 
1865. 
Declared 
in force 
Dec. 18, 
1865.) 



Citizens of 
the United 
States — 
protection 



Article XIII 

Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, 
except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have 
been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or 
any place subject to their jurisdiction. 

Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article 
by appropriate legislation. 

Article XIV 

Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United 
States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens 
of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No 



APPENDIX 



441 



State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the 
privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States ; nor 
shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, 
without due process of law ; nor deny to any person within its 
jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. 

Section 2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the 
several States according to their respective numbers, count- 
ing the whole number of persons in each State, excluding 
Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any elec- 
tion for the choice of electors for President and Vice Presi- 
dent of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the 
Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of 
the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabit- 
ants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citi- 
zens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for 
participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of represen- 
tation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the 
number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number 
of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State. 



of. (Pro- 
posed June 
16,1866. 
Declared 
in force 
July 28, 
1868.) 

New basis 
of repre- 
sentation 
in Con- 
gress. 
(Supersed- 
ing part of 
Art. I, Sec. 
2, cl. 3.) 



Section 3. No person shall be a Senator or Representative Disabili- 
in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or ^\^^ °^ °®" 
hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or gaged in 
under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as rebellion, 
a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, 
or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or 
judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of 
the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or re- 
bellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies 
thereof. But Congress may by two-thirds vote of each House, 
remove such disability. 



Section 4. The validity of the public debt of the United Validity of 
States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for pay- '^^^ ^®^*' 
ment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing 
insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither 



442 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 



Voting 
rights of 
citizens of 
the U. S. 



Income 

tax. 



Direct 

election 
of senators. 



Method of 
election. 

Tempo- 
rary 
appoint- 
ments. 



the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt 
or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion 
against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emanci- 
pation of any slave; but all such debts, obUgations and 
claims shall be held illegal and void. 

Section 5. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by 
appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article. 

Article XV ^ 

Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States to 
vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or 
by any State on account of race, color or previous condition 
of servitude. 

Section 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this 
article by appropriate legislation. 

Article XVI ^ 

The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on 
incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportion- 
ment among the several states, and without regard to any 
census or enumeration. 

Article XVII ^ 

The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two 
Senators from each State, elected by the people thereof, 
for six years ; and each Senator shall have one vote. The 
electors in each State shall have the qualifications requisite 
for electors of the most numerous branch of the State legisla- 
tures. 

When vacancies happen in the representation of any State 
in the Senate, the executive authority of each State shall issue 
writs of election to fill such vacancies : Provided that the 
legislature of any State may empower the executive thereof 

1 Proposed February 27, 1869. Declared in force March 30, 1870c 

2 Proposed July 12, 1909. Declared in force February 25, 1913. 
» Proposed June 12, 1912. Declared in force May 13, 1913. 



APPENDIX 443 

to make temporary appointments until the people fill the 
vacancies by election as the legislature may direct. 

This amendment shall not be so construed as to affect the 
election or term of any Ser.ator chosen before it becomes 
valid as part of the Constitution. 

XVIII 

Section 1. After one year from the ratification of this 
article the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicat- 
ing liquors within, the importation thereof into, or the ex- 
portation thereof from the United States and all territory 
subject to the jurisdiction thereof, for beverage purposes, is 
1 ereby prohibited. 

Section 2. The Congress and the several States shall 
liave concurrent power to enforce this article b)^ appropriate 
legislation. 

Section 3. This article shall be hioperative unless it shall 
have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by 
the Legislatures of tl e several States, as provided by the 
Constitution, within seven years from the date of the sub- 
mission hereof to the States by the Congress. 



444 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 



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INDEX 



A. B. C. Conference, at Niagara Falls, 395. 

Abnaki Indians, 40. 

Abolition of slavery, beginning of movement 
for, 245. 

Acadia, given to de Monts, 24 ; captured by 
English, 108; inhabitants expelled, 113- 
114. 

Accau, Michel, French explorer, 104. 

Act of Uniformity, 67. 

Adams, Charles Francis, 302. 

Adams, John, on Otis' speech, 123 ; on Lee's 
resolutions, 142; at peace of Paris, 168; 
elected President, 198; makes peace with 
France, 199; defeated by Jefferson, 202. 

Adams, John Quincy, Secretary of State, 233 ; 
and Monroe Doctrine, 234; elected Presi- 
dent, 237 ; portrait, 239 ; defeated by 
Jackson, 241 ; in Congress, 247. 

Adams, Samuel, 130, 131, 163. 

Agriculture, extension of, 347 ; department 
of, 347-348, 392, 400- 

Alabama, admitted, 230; secedes, 292. 

Alabama, Confederate warship, 302. 

Alabama award, 337. 

Alaska, purchase of, 334 ; boundary dispute, 
380. 

Albany Congress, 111-112, 118. 

Algiers, interferes with American commerce, 
205. 

Algonquin Indians, 30-31, 83. 

Alien and Sedition Laws, 200. 

Allen. Ethan, captures Ticonderoga and 
Crown Point, 139. 

Allouez, Claude, missionary, 42, 102-103. 

Altgeld, governor of Illinois, 365. 

America named, 16-17. 

American Federation of Labor, 351. 

American Revolution, 121-171. 

Anderson, Major Robert, 295. 

Andrew, governor of Massachusetts, 298. 

Andros, Edmund, his rule in Massachusetts, 
78-79; governor of New York, 86; por- 
trait, 79. 

Annapolis convention, 176. 



Anthracite Coal Strike, 383. 

Anti-federalists, oppose adoption of the 
Constitution, 180. 

Anti-masonic Party, 244. 

Anti-slavery Society, 246. 

Anti-trust Act, 3S4-3S5. 390. 

Appomattox, 326. 

Arbitration, international, 379. 

Argentina, at Niagara Falls Conference, 
395- 

Argonne Forest, American losses in, 412. 

Arizona, admitted, 388; adopts woman 
suffrage, 391. 

Arkansas, admitted, 265 ; secedes, 296. 

Armistice, signed with Germany, 411. 

Army, United States, beginnings of, 138; 
mutiny in, 162, 175; at outbreak of War 
of 1S12, 216; strength of, fixed, 225; in 
Mexican War, 257-260; superior numbers 
of, in Civil War, 297; losses, 327; in 
Spanish War, 373, 374; in Cuba, 375; in- 
creased in 1916, 399; in the Great War, 
406, 409, 410. 

Arnold, Benedict, attacks Quebec, 140; 
treason of, 163 ; reenforces Cornwallis, 
166. 

Arthur, Chester A., collector of New York, 
357; becomes President, 360; and civil 
service reform, 361. 

Articles of Confederation, see Confederation. 

Ashburton Treaty, 253. 

Astoria founded, 255. 

Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad, 
342. 

Australian Ballot, 355. 

Austria, defeated by Prussia, 405 ; makes war 
on Serbia, 396 ; United States at war with, 
403 ; makes peace proposals, 408 ; de- 
feated, 411. 

Autocrat of the Breakfast Table, 271. 

Azores rediscovered, 7. 



Bacon's Rebellion, 57. 

Badin, Reverend Stephen, 190. 



44S 



446 



INDEX 



Ballinger, Secretary of the Interior, 387. 

Bancroft, George, 272. 

Bank, United States, first, 194; second, 225 ; 
destroyed by Jackson, 245 ; Independent 
Treasury System takes place of, 249; 
Tyler opposes recharter of, 252. 

Banks: "pet banks" fail, 249; national 
banks established, 322. 

Baptists, 289. 

Barbastro, Father Luis Cancer de, 38. 

Barre condemns the Stamp Act, 125. 

Barry, Captain John, "Father of the Amer- 
ican Navy," 158; portrait, 158. 

Beauregard, Confederate general, 298. 

Belknap, Secretary of War, 338. 

Bell, Alexander Graham, 352. 

Bell, John, 291. 

Benedict XV, Pope, makes peace proposals, 
408. 

Bennington, battle of, 148. 

Berkeley, John, New Jersey proprietor, 88. 

Berkeley, Sir William, Governor of Virginia, 
S6. 

Bemstorff, Count von, German Ambassador, 
401. 

Biard, Indian missionary, 39. 

Bienville founds New Orleans, 106. 

Biglow Papers, 271. 

Biloxi, Mississippi, 105. 

"Black Codes," 331-332. 

Black Hawk War, 274. 

"Blacklist," of American firms, 398 

Blaine, James G., 341, 361. 

Bland-AlUson Law, 358. 

Blockade of Confederate ports, 301, 302. 

"Bloody Monday," 273. 

"Bloody Shirt," 341. 

Blue Ridge Mountains, 297. 

Body of Liberties, 73. 

Bon Homme Richard defeats the Serapis, 

I5Q- 
Booth, John Wilkes, 327. 
"Border Ruffians," 285. 
Boston, founded, 72; evacuated by the 

British, 139. 
"Boston Massacre," 129—130. 
Boston News Letter, first newspaper in the 

colonies, 99. 
Boston Port Bill, 132. 
Boston "Tea Party," 130, 131. 
Boundary of Louisiana Purchase defined, 232. 
Bounties for enlistment, 321. 



Braddock, Edward, defeated by French and 

Indians, 112-113. 
Bradford, WiUiam, governor of Plymouth, 

69. 
Bragg, Confederate commander, 311, 314, 

315- 

Brandywine, battle of, 147. 

Brant, Joseph, Indian leader, 155. 

Brazil, at Niagara Falls Conference, 395. 

Brebeuf martyred by Iroquois, 41. 

Breckenridge, John C, 291. 

Breed's Hill, 137. 

Brown, John, in Kansas, 285 ; seizes United 
States arsenal, 290. 

Bryan, William Jennings, candidate for the 
presidency, 366-367, 376, 386; aids nomi- 
nation of Wilson, 389. 

Buchanan, James, chosen President, 285 ; 
portrait, 2S6; and secession, 293. 

Buell, Federal commander, 311. 

Buena Vista, battle of, 259. 

Buffalo, exposition at, 377. 

Bulgaria, defeated in the Great War, 411. 

Bull Run, first battle of, 298 ; second battle, 
307. 

Bunker Hill, 137. 

Burgoyne, invades New York, 147; sur- 
renders, 148. 

Burke Act, 346. 

Burnside, Federal general, 308-309. 

Burr, Aaron, 202. 

Business concentration, 353-354- 

Butler, Colonel, 155. 

Cabeza de Vaca, 20. 

Cabinet, President's, beginnings of, 192. 

Cabot, John, 17. 

Cabral discovers Brazil, 16. 

Cadillac founds Detroit, 106. 

Cahokia, 106. 

Calhoun, John C, champions nullificarion, 
242 ; opposes Jackson's reelection, 243 ; 
and Compromise of 1850, 281; death of, 
282. 

California, occupied by American forces, 
259; gold discovered in, 260-261; mis- 
sions, 261-262 ; admitted, 265 ; and 
Japanese, 381 ; adopts woman suffrage, 

3gi- 

Calvert, Cecil, second Lord Baltimore, given 
Maryland grant, 58; counsels religious 
toleration, 59. 



INDEX 



447 



Calvert, George, first Lord Baltimore, asks 
for grant of land in America, 57; por- 
trait, 58. 

Calvert, Leonard, first governor of Mary- 
land, 59; death of, 60. 

Cambridge Agreement, 71. 

Camden, battle of, 161-162. 

Canning, English statesman, 218, 234. 

Cannon, Joseph, 387. 

Cape of Good Hope, 7. 

Carolina, charter granted, 61 ; first settle- 
ment in, 62. 

"Carpetbaggers," 334, 335, 339. 

Carpini, John of Piano, 6. 

Carranza, Provisional President of Mexico, 

393, 394- 

Carroll, Charles, 236. 

Carroll, Bishop John, 189-190. 

Carteret, George, 88. 

Cartier visits St. Lawrence River, 23. 

Carver, John, first governor of Plymouth, 

69. 
Cass, Lewis, 279. 
CathoHc Church, in early days of the 

republic, i8g, 190; and Indian education, 

346-347- 
Cathohc Indian Missions, Bureau of, 347. 
Cavaliers arrive in Virginia, 56. 
Cayuga Indians, 30. 
Cedar Creek, battle of, 324. 
Census, first, 184. 
Centennial Exposition, 341. 
Centennial State, 347. 
Cervera, Spanish admiral, 372, 373, 374. 
Chabanel, missionary, 41. 
Champlain, Samuel, 25, 102. 
Chancellorsville, battle of, 318. 
Chapultepec captured, 260. 
Charles I, grants Maryland charter, 57 ; 

confirms title of Massachusetts Company, 

71- 
Charles II, grants Carolina charter, 61 ; 

gives land to Penn, 89. 
Charter of Liberties, 87. 
Chase, Secretary of the Treasury, 322. 
Chattanooga, siege of, 314. 
Cherokee Indians, 30, 31, 155, 274. 
Chesapeake, American frigate, 212. 
Chicago, Columbian Exposition at, 265. 
Chickamauga, battle of, 314. 
Chickasaw Indians, 30, 274. 
Child Labor Act, 400. 



Children's Bureau, 3S7-388, 392. 

Chile, at Niagara Falls Conference, 395. 

China, commerce with, 276. 

Chinese exclusion, 381. 

Choctaw Indians, 30, 274. 

Cibola, 20. 

Civil Rights Bill, 332. 

Civil Service Commission, 360. 

Civil Service Reform League, 360. 

Clark, George Rogers, 155, 156. 

Clark, WiUiam, explorer, 208. 

Clay, Henry, chosen speaker, 215 ; candidate 
for the presidency, 237, 243, 255 ; urges 
tariff reduction, 245 ; quarrels with Tyler, 
252; and Compromise of 1850, 281-282; 
portrait, 281. 

Clayton Anti-trust Act, 390. 

Clayton-Bulwer treaty, 262, 378. 

Clermont, Fulton's steamboat, 210. 

Cleveland, Grover, chosen president, 361 ; 
opposes high tariff, 362 ; defeated for 
reelection, 362 ; second election, 363 ; 
and silver purchase law, 365 ; and Pull- 
man strike, 365-366; and Venezuela, 369; 
and Hawaiian annexation, 371. 

CHnton, British general, attacks Charleston, 
144; succeeds Howe, 153; withdraws to 
New • York, 154; captures Charleston, 
161. 

Clinton, De Witt, advocates Erie Canal, 235. 

Cold Harbor, battle of, 323. 

Colfax, Schuyler, 338. 

Colombia and Panama, 378. 

Colonial Ufe, 93-101. 

Colorado, admitted, 347 ; grants woman 
suffrage, 390. 

Columbia, Captain Gray's ship, 209. 

Columbia River, discovered, 209; proposed 
as Oregon boundary, 256. 

Columbian Exposition, 365. 

Columbus, Christopher, early life, 8; seeks 
aid for western voyage, 10, 11 ; discoveries 
of, II, 12, 14, 15; death of, 16. 

Commerce, in colonial times, 56, 96-97 ; in 
the Constitution, 179; in the Great War, 

397, 398. 
Commerce Commission, Interstate, 344. 
Commerce and Labor, Department of, 383. 
Committees of Correspondence, formed, 130; 

in Massachusetts, 133. 
Committees of Public Safety, 134. 
Common Sense, 142. 



448 



INDEX 



Compromises, of the Constitution, 178-170; 
Missouri, 230; destroyed, 284; of 1850, 
280-282. 

Concord, battle of, 135-136. 

Confederacy, established, 2g2 ; population 
of, 297; lack of manufactures in, 297. 

Confederation, Articles of, adopted, 172; 
weakness of, 173-176; dissatisfaction 
with, 176. 

Congregational Church, 189. 

Congress, Continental, first, 134; second, 
136; resolves on independence, 142; 
flees from Philadelphia, 145, 147; and 
paper money, 152; and the navy, 157; 
quarrels with Arnold, 163; receives 
Washington's resignation, 170; asks for 
cession of western lands, 173. 

Congress, Stamp Act, 125-126. 

Congress, United States, formation of, 179; 
provides administrative departments, 192 ; 
and the right of petition, 247 ; opposes 
Lincoln's plan of reconstruction, 330; 
impeaches President Johnson, 333. 

Conkling, Roscoe, 357. 

Connecticut, founded, 73-74 1 adopts man- 
hood suffrage, 266. 

"Conquered provinces," 330. 

Conscription Act, 406. 

Conservation, of natural resources, 385. 

Constantinople, conquered by Turks, 5; 
reconquest of, 411. 

Constitution, of the United States, for- 
mulated, 179; compromises of, 179; 
ratified, 1 80-1 81 ; first ten amendments 
to, 181 ; twelfth amendment, 203 ; 
thirteenth amendment, 328; fourteenth 
amendment, 332, 333 ; fifteenth amend- 
ment, 335-336; sixteenth amendment, 
388; seventeenth amendment, 389; 
eighteenth amendment, 413. 

Constitution, American frigate, 218. 

Constitutional Convention, meets in Philadel- 
phia, 178; formulates Constitution, 179- 
180. 

Continental Congress, see Congress, Con- 
tinental. 

Contract Labor Law, 350. 

Cooper, James Fenimore, 226. 

Cornwallis, sent to destroy Washington's 
forces, 14s ; in command in the South, 
161 ; defeats Gates at Camden, 161 ; 
pursues Morgan, 165 ; meets Greene at 



Guilford Court House, 166; enters 

Virginia, 166; surrenders at Yorktown, 

168. 
Coronado, 20. 

Corporations, Bureau of, 383. 
Cortez, 20. 
"Cotton belt," 228. 
Cotton-gin, invented, 187; effect of, on 

slavery, 187-188. 
Crawford of Georgia, 291. 
Creek Indians, 30, 219-220, 274. 
Creek War, 219-220. 
Crevecoeur, Fort, 104. 
Crown Point, Fort, taken by Ethan Allen, 

139- 
Crusades, 2-3. 
Cuba, repubhc of, 375. 
Cuban independence, 374. 
Cuban Rebellion, 371. 
Cumberland Road, 229. 
Currency and Banking Law, 390. 
Custer, General George A., 345. 

Daniel, missionary to the Hurons, 41. 

Danish West Indies, purchase of, 395. 

Dardanelles, closed to commerce, 397. 

Davenport, Reverend John, founder of 
New Haven, 74. 

Davis, Jefferson, chosen president of the 
Confederacy, 292 ; portrait, 295 ; pre- 
dicts long war, 294; captured, 327. 

Davost, missionary to the Hurons, 41. 

Dawes Act, 345-346- 

Deane, Silas, American agent in Paris, 

151- 

Dearborn, Henry, American general, 217. 

Dearborn Massacre, 217. 

Debts, Revolutionary War, 176: payment 
of, 193; state debts, 193; Loyalist, 107, 
of United States in Great War, 407, 

413- 

Declaration of Independence, 142-143. 

Declaratory Act, 126, 130. 

de Grasse, Count, aids in capture of Corn- 
wallis, 167. 

de Kalb, French officer, killed at Camden, 
162. 

Delaware, settlement of, 91. 

Democracy, 392. 

Democratic Party, beginnings of, 194, 240; 
divided on slavery issue, 287, 289. 

de Monts founds Port Royal, 25. 



INDEX 



449 



Denmark, sells Virgin Islands, 395; defeat 
of, by Prussia, 405. 

de Smet, Peter, S.J., Indian missionary, 
274-275. 

de Soto discovers the Mississippi, 21. 

d'Estaing, Count, commands French fleet 
at Savannah, 160. 

Detroit, founded, 106; surrendered to 
British, 217. 

Dewey, Commondore George, at Manila, 372. 

Diaz, Bartholomew, 7, 8. 

Diaz, Porfirio, President of Mexico, 393. 

Dingley Tariff, 367, 386. 

Dinwiddle, governor of Virginia, no. 

Donelson, Fort, 309, 310. 

Dongan, Thomas, governor of New York, 
86-87. 

Dorr'5 Rebellion, 266. 

Dorr, Thomas W., 266-267. 

Douglas, Stephen A., champions ''squatter 
sovereignty," 279; portrait, 279; sup- 
ports Kansas-Nebraska Bill, 283 ; opposes 
Lecompton Constitution, 287 ; debates 
with Lincoln, 287-289; defeated for the 
presidency, 291. 

Dow, Neal, 275-276. 

Draft riots, 321. _ 

Drake, Francis, first Englishman to cir- 
cumnavigate the earth, 44. 

Dred Scott decision, 286, 288, 289. 

Drexel, Katherine, 347. 

Druillettes, Gabriel, missionary, 40. 

Drummond, WiUiam, leader in Bacon's 
Rebellion, 57. 

Duquesne, Fort, in, 112, 113, 115. 

Dutch, in New Amsterdam, 82-86; and in 
Revolution, i6o. 

Early, General, in the Shenandoah Valley, 

324- 
Eaton, Theophilus, 74. 
Edison, Thomas A., 352, 353. 
Education, in colonial times, 98-99 ; land 

grants for, 177-178; in Revolutionary 

period, 189; among working people, 265; 

in early nineteenth century, 272 ; Catholic, 

272; of Indians, 346; extension of, 392. 
Eight-hour Day Law, Railroad, 400. 
El Caney, battle of, 374. 
Elections, presidential, 181, 195, 197-198, 

202-203, 213, 224-225, 237, 241, 243. 

247, 249, 255, 279-280, 282-283, 285- 
2G 



286, 291, 324, 333-334. 336-337, 338- 
339, 359, 361,362, 363,366-367,376-377, 
384, 386, 389-390; primary, 391. 

Electoral Commission, 339. 

Electric telegraph, 269. 

Elizabeth, Queen, gives aid to Hawkins, 44 ; 
secures Act of Uniformity, 67. 

Emancipation Proclamation, 309. 

Embargo Act, 212. 

"Emigrant Aid Society," 284. 

Endicott, John, leads party to Massachusetts, 
70; portrait, 71. 

England, explorers of, 17, 44-46; need of 
colonies, 46-47 ; and expulsion of French 
from New World, 11 2-1 18; colonial 
policy of, 1 21-123, 126, 127, 131-133; 
and American commerce, 196-197, 211- 
213; and War of 1812, 215-224; in the 
Civil War, 302-303 ; and Venezuelan 
boundary dispute, 369; and Venezuelan 
debts, 394 ; declares war on Germany, 396; 
interferes with American commerce, 397 ; 
needs American food, 406 ; promises ships 
for American forces, 410. 

Episcopal Church, 189. 

Eric the Red, i. 

Ericsson, John, designer of the Monitor, 304. 

Erie Canal, 235-236. 

Erie, Lake, battle of, 218-219. 

Erskine, British minister, 213. 

Escalona, Luis de, murdered by Indians, 37. 

Espionage Law, 408. 

Evangeline, 114, 271. 

Expositions, 365, 377, 379. 

Factories, beginnings of, 265. 

Fair Oaks, battle of, 306. 

Fallen Timber, battle of, 186. 

■'Farewell Address," Washington's, 198. 

Farm Loans Act, 399. 

"Father of the American Navy," John 
Barry, 158. 

Federal Aid Roads Act, 400. 

Federal Hall, 183. 

Federalists, favor adoption of the Con- 
stitution, 180; name assumed by Hamil- 
ton's followers, 194; principles of, 195; 
nominate John Adams, 198 ; fall of, 202 ; 
oppose War of 1812, 216, 224. 

Federal Reserve Board, 390. 

Federal Trade Commission, 390. 

Ferdinand, king of Spain, II, 15. 



45° 



INDEX 



Ferguson, Major, defeated at King's Moun- 
tain, 162. 

Field, Cyrus, 270. 

"Fifty-four Forty or Fight," 256. 

Filipinos, join forces with United States, 
375; attack American troops, 375. 

Fillmore, Millard, named vice-president, 
279; succeeds to the presidency, 282. 

Fisher's Hill, battle of, 324. 

Fitch, John, 209. 

Five Nations' Confederacy, 30, 86. 

Flathead Indians, 275. 

Florida, discovered, 19; Christianity estab- 
lished in, 38; acquisition of, 232-23,3; 
admitted, 265 ; secedes, 292 ; fruit 
culture in, 348. 

Foch, Marshal, 409, 411. 

Forbes, General, 115. 

Forts, see under name of fort. 

"Fourteen Points," 409. 

France, explorers of, 23-27 ; and control of 
North America, 102-117 ; forms American 
alliance, 151-152; threatens war, 199; 
defeated by Prussia, 405 ; at war with 
Germany, 396 ; welcomes American troops, 
406. 

Franciscan Recollects, 39. 

Franciscans, in the Southwest, 37 ; in 
Florida, 38. 

Franklin, Benjamin, secures public library 
for Philadelphia, 99; proposes colonial 
union, 112; negotiates peace with Eng- 
land, 168 ; in constitutional convention, 
178. 

Frederick the Great, 115, 117. 

Free Silver, 358, 363, 366. 

Free Soil Party, 279-280. 

"Freedom of the Seas," 401, 408, 409. 

Fremont, John C, nominated for the pres- 
idency, 285. 

Frolic, British brig, 218. 

Frontenac, governor of Canada, 103. 

Fugitive Slave Law, proposed, 281 ; enacted, 
282 ; rouses Northern anger, 283. 

Fulton, Robert, builds successful steamboat, 
209; portrait, 209. 

Gadsden, James, 260. 

Gadsden Purchase, 260. 

Gage, British general, reports on American 

conditions, 131; in command at Boston, 

13s, 136, 137- 



GalUtzin, "Apostle of the AUeghanies," 190. 

Garfield, James A., chosen president, 359- 
360; death of, 360. 

Garnier, Charles, martyred by the Iroquoi'^, 
41. 

Garrison, WilUam Lloyd, founds Anti- 
slavery Society, 246. 

Gates, General Horatio, given command in 
the South, 161; defeated at Camden, 
161-162. 

Geneva Tribunal, 337. 

George II grants Georgia charter, 63. 

George III, statue in his honor, 126. 

Georgetown College, 190. 

Georgia, founded, 63 ; secedes, 292. 

German Empire, established, 404. 

German immigration, 228, 264, 272, 350. 

Germantown, battle of, 147. 

Germany, and Venezuelan debts, 394 ; enters 
Great War, 396; ports of, blockaded, 397; 
submarine warfare of, 398, 401 ; United 
States at war with, 402 ; government of, 
403; defeat of, 411. 

Gettysburg, battle of, 319-321. 

Ghent, treaty of, 223-224. 

Gibault, Reverend Peter, 156. 

Gilbert, Sir Humphrey, claims Newfound- 
land for England, 45. 

Gold discovered in California, 260-261. 

Gorges, Sir Ferdinando, receives grant of 
Maine, 75. 

Gosnold, Bartholomew, visits Massachu- 
setts, 46. 

Goupil, Rene, killed by Iroquois, 41. 

Grange, the, 343. 

" Granger Laws," 343. 

Grant, General Ulysses S., captures Forts 
Henry and Donelson, 310; at Shiloh, 
311; captures Vicksburg, 312; made 
lieutenant-general, 315; forces Lee to 
Richmond, 323-324; at Appomattox, 
326; chosen president, S32,; reelected, 
336 ; candidate for third term, 359. 

Gray, Captain Robert, discovers Columbia 
River, 209. 

Great Britain, see England. 

Great War, breaks out in Europe, 395; 
United States, neutral in, 396; disturbs 
American business, 396 ; leads to increase 
of army and navy, 399 ; United States 
enters, 402 ; end of, 411. 

Great Western, ocean steamship, 270. 



INDEX 



451 



Greeley, Horace, editor, 271; on secession, 
293 ; candidate for the presidency, 336 ; 
death of, 337. 

"Greenbacks," 323, 359. 

Greene, General Nathanael, succeeds Gates, 
164; meets Cornwallis at Guilford Court 
House, 166; regains the South, 166. 

Greenland, i, 2. 

Guadalupe-Hidalgo, treaty of, 260. 

Guam, island of, 374. 

Guanahani, island of, 12. 

Guerriere, British frigate, 218. 

Hague, the, permanent court of, 380. 

"Hail Columbia," 181. 

Haiti, 12, 394. 

Half Moon, Henry Hudson's ship, 82. 

Hamilton, Alexander, writes report of An- 
napolis Convention, 176; delegate to 
Constitutional Convention, 178; Secre- 
tary of the Treasury, 192 ; his financial 
plans, 193-194. 

Hamilton, Henry, British commander at 
Detroit, 155; captured at Vincennes, 157. 

Hancock, General Winfield Scott, at Gettys- 
burg, 320; candidate for the presidency, 
360. 

Harrison, Benjamin, elected President, 362 ; 
defeated for reelection, 363 ; portrait, 362. 

Harrison, WilHam Henry, victor at Tippe- 
canoe, 215 ; defeats British on the Thames, 
219; chosen President, 249-250; death of, 
252. 

Hartford Convention, 224. 

Harvard College, 99. 

Harvey, Father, opens school in New York, 
99. 

Hawaii, 276, 370. 

Hawkins, Captain John, 44. 

Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 271. 

Hay, John, Secretary of State, 378. 

Hayes, Rutherford B., candidate for the 
presidency, 338 ; portrait, 338 ; chosen 
President, 339 ; and the Republican 
Party, 357, 358. 

Hayne, Robert, upholds nullification, 242. 

Health Service, Public, 392. 

Hendricks, Thomas, Vice-President, 361. 

Hennepin, Father Louis, names Falls of St. 
Anthony, 104. 

Henry the Navigator, 7, 8. 

Henry of Prussia, Prince, 176. 



Henry, Fort, 309, 310. 

Henry, Patrick, resolutions against Stamp 
Act, 124-125; governor of Virginia, 155; 
opposes ratification of the Constitution, 
180. 

Hepburn Rate Bill, 384. 

Herald, newspaper, 271. 

"High cost of living," 367. 

HohenzoUem, House of, 404. 

Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 271. 

Holy Land, crusades for, 3 ; liberated, 411. 

Homestead Act, 267.. 

Hood, General J. B., opposes Sherman, 316; 
defeated at Nashville, 317. 

Hooker, Federal commander, succeeds Burn- 
side, 309; defeated at Chancellorsville, 
318. 

Hooker, Reverend Thomas, founder of Hart- 
ford, 74. 

Horseshoe Bend, battle of, 220. 

Howe, Elias, 269. 

Howe, Sir William, in command of British 
at Boston, 138; captures New York and 
neighboring forts, 145 ; his offer of pardon, 
14s ; captures Philadelphia, 147 ; suc- 
ceeded by Clinton, 153. 

Hudson Bay, British control of, recognized, 
108. 

Hudson, Henry, discovers Hudson River, 82. 

Huerta, Victoriano, President of Mexico, 393. 

Hughes, Archbishop, 303. 

Hughes, Charles, nominated for the presi- 
dency, 400. 

Hull, Captain Isaac, 218. 

Hull, General William, 217. 

Huron Indians, 40, 41. 

Hutchinson, Chief Justice, mob attacks his 
house, 125. 

Hutchinson, Mrs. Anne, aids in settlement 
of Rhode Island, 75. 

Iberville, French explorer, 105. 

Iceland, i. 

Idaho, admitted, 347 ; grants woman suf- 
frage, 390. 

Illinois, admitted, 230; adopts woman suf- 
frage, 391. 

Immigration, in the colonies, 93-94 ; in 
early days of the republic, 184; later, 
228, 264, 272, 349; restrictions on, 350, 
381, 382. 

Impeachment of President Johnson, ^i^^. 



452 



INDEX 



"Imperialism," 376. 

Impressment of American seamen, 212, 215. 

Independent Treasury System, 24 g. 

Indians, North American, named by Co- 
lumbus, 2g ; eastern tribes of, 30 ; food and 
dwellings of, 31 ; industries of, 32 ; society, 
33 ; religion of, 34 ; and the whites, 34 ; 
education of, 346-347 ; treaties with, 6g, 
86, gi, 186, 214, 274; wars with, 76, 77- 
78, 83-84, 118-119, 154-155, 185-186, 
214-215, 2ig-22o, 223, 274, 344-345. 
See names of tribes. 

Indian Territory, established, 274; united 
to Oklahoma, 386. 

Indiana admitted, 230. 

Ingle, Captain Richard, leads revolt in 
Maryland, 60. 

Initiative, 391. 

Insurgents oppose Taft, 387. 

Internal improvements planned by Jeffer- 
son, 210. 

International arbitration, 37g. 

Interstate Commerce Commission, 344, 384. 

Intolerable Acts, 132. 

Inventions, 187-188, 2og, 236, 267-270, 352- 
353- 

Iowa admitted, 265. 

Irish, immigration of, 93-g4, 228, 264, 272, 
350. 

Irish brigade, 3og. 

Ironclad battleships, 303. 

Iroquois Indians, 30, 41, 82, 86, 108, in. 

"Irrepressible conflict," 28g. 

Irving, Washington, 226. 

Isabella of Spain, 11, 15. 

Island No. 10, 311. 

Jackson, Andrew, defeats Creek Indians, 
220; at battle of New Orleans, 222; in- 
vades Florida, 233 ; first American gov- 
ernor of Florida, 233 ; defeated for the 
presidency, 237; portrait, 241; elected 
President, 241 ; and nulUfication, 243- 
244 ; reelected, 243 ; and the tariff, 245 ; 
and the United States Bank, 245 ; issues 
Specie Circular, 248. 

Jackson, General "Stonewall," 300, 306, 307, 
318, 319- 

James I grants Virginia charter, 49. 

James II appoints Andros governor of New 
York and New England, 7g; driven from 
English throne, 79. 



Jamestown, founded, 50; early times in, 51- 
55 ; captured by Bacon, 57. 

Japan, treaty of commerce with, 276; and 
peace of Portsmouth, 381. 

Japanese exclusion, 381-382. 

Java, British warship, 218. 

Jay, John, represents colonies at peace of 
Paris, 168; makes treaty with England, 
197; first Chief Justice of United States 
Supreme Court, 192. 

Jay's treaty, 197. 

Jefferson, Thomas, writes Declaration of 
Independence, 143; oppyoses slavery, 187; 
named Secretary of State, 192 ; chosen 
Vice-President, ig8; elected President, 
202 ; portrait, 204 ; his principles of gov- 
ernment, 205 ; directs war against Tripoli, 
205 ; purchases Louisiana, 206 ; sends out 
Lewis and Clark, 208 : refuses third term, 

213- 

The Jesuit Relations, 3g. 

Jogues, Father Isaac, missionary to Hurons, 
41 ; martyred by Iroquois, 42 ; at New 
Amsterdam, 84. 

Johnson, Andrew, chosen Vice-President, 
325; becomes President, 331; portrait, 
331; reconstruction plan of, 331; im- 
peachment of, m. 

Johnson, William, 112. 

Johnston, General Albert Sydney, 310. 

Johnston, General Joseph E., 306, 312, 316, 
326. 

Joliet, Louis, reaches the Mississippi, 103. 

Jones, John Paul, portrait, 159; victory over 
the Serapis, 159. 

Junkers, 405. 

Kansas, struggle over slavery in, 284-285 ; 
admitted, 287 ; adopts woman suffrage, 
391- 

Kansas-Nebraska Act, 283. 

Kaskaskia, 106. 

Kearney, General Stephen W., organizes 
New Mexican government, 259. 

Kenesaw Mountain, battle of, 316. 

Kentucky, admitted, 186. 

Key, Francis Scott, writes Star-Spangled 
Banner, 222. 

Kieft, WilHam, governor of New Nether- 
land, 84. 

King George's War, 108-iog. 

King Phihp's War, 77-78. 



INDEX 



453 



King William's War, 105, 107. 
King's Mountain, battle of, 162. 
Knights of Columbus, 408. 
Knights of Labor, 351, 365. 
Know-nothing Party, 272-273, 2gi. 
Knox, Henry, Secretary of War, 192. 
Ku-Klux Klan, 335. 

Labor, conditions of, in factories, 265. 

Labor Bureau, Federal, 351. 

Labor Day, 366. 

Labor, Department of, 387-388, 392 

Labor unions, 350-351. 

La Cruz, Father Juan de, 37. 

Lafayette, offers services to America, 151; 

portrait, 152; opposes Cornwallis, 166; 

at Yorktown, 167. 
La Follette, Robert, United States Senator, 

389. 

Lake of the Woods, 232. 

Lalement, Father Gabriel, killed by Iroquois, 
41. 

Lands, free distribution of, demanded, 266. 

La Rabida Convent, 11. 

Laramie, Fort, Indian congress at, 275. 

La Salle, explores the West, 104 ; reaches 
the mouth of the Mississippi, 105. 

Las Casas, Bishop, 9. 

"Latter Day Saints," 273. 

Le Caron, missionary to the Hurons, 40. 

Lecompton Constitution, 287. 

Lee, General Charles, at Monmouth, 154. 

Lee, Richard Henry, asks for declaration of 
independence, 142; portrait, 172; sug- 
gests plan of federation, 172. 

Lee, General Robert E., succeeds Johnston, 
306 ; at Bull Run, 307 ; at Antietam, 
307-308; at Chancellorsville, 318; at 
Gettysburg, 319-321; portrait, 320; 
driven back to Richmond, 323-324 ; 
surrenders, 326. 

Leif Ericson, i. 

Leisler, Jacob, 87. 

Le Moyne, Jean, see Bienville. 

Le Moyne, missionary to Iroquois, 42. 

Le Moyne, Peter, see Iberville. 

Leopard, British warship, 212. 

Lewis, Meriwether, explorer, 208. 

Lewis and Clark Expedition, 208. 

Lexington, battle of, 135-136. 

Lexington, Captain Barry's vessel, 15S, 
159. 



Liberal Republicans, 336. 

Liberator, anti-slavery paper, 246. 

"Liberty Loans," 407. 

Lincoln, Abraham, and Dred Scott decision, 

286, 288; debates with Douglas, 287-289; 

elected President, 291; first inaugural 

address, 294; portrait, 294; calls out 

miUtia, 296 ; declares blockade, 301 ; 

issues Emancipation Proclamation, 309; 

second election of, 325; death of, 327; 

his plan of reconstruction, 330. 
Lincoln, General, attacks Savannah, 160; 

surrenders army, 161. 
Line of demarcation, 12, 16. 
Little Big Horn, battle of, 345. 
Loans, to European governments, 413. 
"Log-cabin candidate," 250. 
London Company, chartered, 49 ; founds 

Jamestown, 50; receives second charter, 

52; grants self-government, 55 ; dissolved, 

55- 
Longfellow, Henry W., 271 ; portrait, 271. 
Long Island, battle of, 145. 
Lookout Mountain, battle of, 314. 
Louis XIV, 105. 
Louisburg, fortified by French, 108; taken 

by English, 109; captured a second time, 

115; 

Louisiana, purchase of, 206 ; exploration of, 

206-209; admitted, 230; secedes, 292. 
Lowell, James Russell, 271; portrait, 271; 

on fall of Fort Sumter, 296. 
LoyaHsts, leave Boston, 139; in the South, 

143; aid British, 154; join Cornwallis, 

162. 
Lusitania, torpedoed, 398. 

MacDonough, Thomas, victor of Plattsburg, 
221. 

Macedonia, British frigate, 218. 

Macon's Bill No. 2, 214. 

Madero, Francisco, President of Mexico, 
393- 

Madison, James, in constitutional conven- 
tion, 178; opposes payment of state debts, 
193; elected President, 213; suspends 
commercial intercourse with Great Britain, 
214; recommends war, 215. 

Madras, India, log. 

Magellan, 18. 

Mahan, Admiral, 117. 

Maine, given to Gorges, 75 ; absorbed by 



454 



INDEX 



Massachusetts, 76 ; admitted, 230; passes 
first state wide prohibition law, 275-276. 
Maine, battleship, 371. 
Maiden, siege of, 217. 
Malvern Hill, battle of, 306. 
Manassas Junction, 298. 
Mandan Indians, 208. 
Manhattan Island, settlement of, 82-83. 
Manila, battle of, 372. 
Marco Polo, 6. 

Marcos of Niza, missionary, 37. 
Marion, Francis, guerrilla leader, 161. 
Marquette, Father James, 42 ; discovers the 
Mississippi, 103; preaches among Illinois 
Indians, 104. 
Martinez, Father Pedro, killed by Indians, 

38. 
Marye's Heights, 308. 

Maryland, origin of name, 58; first settle- 
ment, 59 ; toleration, 59-60 ; civil war in, 
60 ; demands cession of western lands, 172; 
adopts manhood suffrage, 266. 
Maskoki Indians, 30. 
Mason, James, 301, 302. 
Mason, Captain John, given title to New 

Hampshire, 75. 
Mason and Dixon Line established, 92. 
Massachusetts, early settlements in, 68-73 ; 
expands to the north, 75; punished by 
British Parliament, 131-133- 
Massachusetts Bay Colony, foundation and 
growth, 70-73; loses its charter, 78; 
united with Plymouth, 79. 
Massasoit, Chief of the Wampanoags, 69. 
Mass6, missionary to the Indians, 39. 
Mathew, Father Theobald, 276. 
Maximilian of Austria, 334. 
Mayflower, 68, 69. 
Mayflower Compact, 69. 
McClellan, General George B., commands 
Army of the Potomac, 300 ; fights Peninsu- 
lar Campaign, 305-306 ; succeeds Pope in 
command, 307 ; at Antietam, 307-308 ; 
succeeded by Burnside, 308; candidate 
for the presidency, 325. 
McCormick reaper, 267-268. 
McDowell, General Irvin, 298. 
McHenry, Fort, bombardment of, 222. 
McKinley, Wilham, chosen President, 366- 
367; and Cuba, 371; second election of, 
376-377; murdered, 377. 
McKinley Bill, 363. 



Meade, General George, succeeds Hooker, 

319; at Gettysburg, 320. - 
Meagher, General Thomas Francis, portrait, 

308 ; at Fredericksburg, 309. 
Memphis, Tenn., 311. 
Menard,- missionary to the Hurons, 42. 
Mendoza, Lopez de, missionary in Florida, 

38. 
Menendez, destroys French settlement, 24 ; 

founds St. Augustine, Fla., 38. 
Merrimac, Confederate armored ship, 303, 

304- 

Methodists, 189, 289. 

Mexican War, 257-260. 

Mexico, and independence of Texas, 254; 
at war with United States, 257-260; in 
Civil War, 312; the French in, 334; and 
the Pious Fund, 380; revolution in, 393; 
punitive expedition enters, 394; and pro- 
posal of German alUance, 402. 

Mexico City captured, 260. 

Michigan, admitted, 265 ; adopts woman 
suffrage, 391. 

Micmac Indians, 40. 

Miles, General Nelson, 374. 

Miles Standish, 271. 

Mims, Fort, massacre of, 220. 

Minnesota admitted, 265. 

Minuit, Peter, first governor of New Nether- 
land, 83. 

Missionaries in the Far East, 5-6. 

Missionary Ridge, battle of, 314. 

Missions, in the Southwest, 37 ; in Florida, 
38 ; in New France, 39-42 ; in California, 
261-262. 

Mississippi, admitted, 230; secedes, 292. 

Missouri admitted, 230. 

Missouri Compromise, 230. 

Mitchell, John, miners' leader, 384. 

Mohawk Indians, 30. 

Molasses Act, enacted, 97 ; enforcement of, 
122, 123. 

Monitor, armored vessel, 304. 

Monmouth, battle of, 154. 

Monroe, James, elected President, 224; 
issues Monroe Doctrine, 234. 

Monroe Doctrine, 233-235; and Mexico, 
334; and Venezuela, 369. 

Montana, admitted, 347 ; adopts woman 
suffrage, 391. 

Montcalm, governor .of Canada, 114, 115. 
116; portrait, 117.' 



INDEX 



455 



Monterey, battle of, 259. 

Montgomery, Alabama, 292. 

Montgomery, Richard, invades Canada, 140. 

Morgan, General Daniel, portrait, 164; de- 
feats Tarleton at Cowpens, 164; retreats 
before Cornwallis, 165. 

Morgan, William, 244. 

Mormon, Book of, 273. 

Mormonism, founded, 273; and polygamy, 

347- 

Mormons found Salt Lake City, 274. 

Morris, Robert, 178. 

Morse, Samuel F. B., perfects electric tele- 
graph, 269. 

Moultrie, Colonel, defends Charleston, 144. 

Moundbuilders, 29. 

Murfreesboro, battle of, 311. 

Napoleon, makes peace with United States, 
199; sells Louisiana, 206; revokes de- 
crees, 214; defeated at Leipzig, 220. 

Napoleon III sends troops to Mexico, 334. 

Narvaez explores Gulf of Mexico, 19. 

Nashville, battle of, 317. 

National Republican Party, 240. 

Navigation Acts, 56. 

Navy, in the Revolution, 157-160; in War 
of 1812, 218-219; in Mexican War, 259; 
in Civil War, 301-305 ; in Spanish War, 
372, 373, 374; building program, 399; 
in Great War, 412. 

Navy Department created, igg. 

Nebraska, admitted, 347 ; woman suffrage in, 

391- 

Necessity, Fort, in. 
Negro problem, 349. 
Neutrality of the United States, 195-196, 

396. 
Nevada, admitted, 347 ; adopts woman 

suffrage, 391. 
New Amsterdam, Dutch in, 83-86. 
New England, early voyages to, 46 ; colonies 

of, 65-81 ; in the War of 1812, 216, 224. 
New England Federation, 76. 
Newfoundland, visited by John Cabot, 1 7 ; 

England's ownership of, recognized, 108. 
New Hampshire, named, 75 ; becomes part 

of Massachusetts, 76; made a royal 

province, 76; ratifies the Constitution, 180. 
New Haven founded, 74. 
New Jersey, settlement of, 88-89. 
New Madrid, 311. 



New Mexico admitted, 388. 

New Netherland, founded, 83 ; growth of, 

83; war with Indians, 83-84; end of 

Dutch rule in, 85-86. 
New Orange, 86. 
New Orleans, founded, 106; battle of, 222- 

223; captured by Farragut, 304. 
Newport, Captain Christopher, commands 

first expedition of London Company, 50. 
Newspapers, in colonial times, 99; use 

electric telegraph, 271. 
New Sweden, settlement of, 91. 
New York, granted to Duke of York, 85 ; 

seized by the Dutch, 86 ; English rule in, 

86-88; ratifies Constitution, 181; adopts 

manhood suffrage, 266; adopts woman 

suffrage, 391. 
Nez Perces Indians, 275. 
Niagara Falls, conference, 19 14, 395. 
Nicaragua, 378. 
Nicolet, Jean, 27. 
Nicolls, Richard, captures New Amsterdam, 

86. 
Nina, Columbus' ship, 11. 
"No Taxation without Representation," 

126-127. 
Nominating convention, first national, 244. 
Nominating election, primary, 391. 
Non-Intercourse Act, passes, 213; expires, 

214. 
North, British Prime Minister, 130. 
North America, visited by Northmen, 2 ; 

discovered by Columbus, 15. 
North American Review, 226. 
North Carolina, established, 62 ; colonial 

products of, 63 ; ratifies Constitution, 

181 ; secedes, 296. 
North Dakota admitted, woman suffrage in, 

391- 

Northern Pacific Railroad, 342. 

Northmen, i. 

Northwest Ordinance, 177. 

Nullification, right of, claimed in Virginia and 

Kentucky Resolutions, 201 ; in South 

Carolina, 242. 

Ocean steamships, 270. 
Ocean telegraph, 270. 
Oglethorpe, James, founds Georgia, 63. 
Ohio Company, no. 

Oklahoma admitted, 386 ; woman suffrage in, 
391- 



456 



INDEX 



Oneida Indians, 30. 

Onondaga Indians, 30. 

"Order of the Star-Spangled Banner," 272. 

Ordinance of Nullification, 244. 

Ordinance of 1787, 177. 

Oregon, joint occupancy of, 232; admitted, 

265 ; adopts woman suffrage, 391. 
Oregon, battleship, 373, 378. 
Oregon Question, 255-256; settled, 257. 
Oriental trade, 3, 4, 5, 7. 
Osceola, leader of Seminole Indians, 274. 
Otis, James, portrait, 122; on writs of 

assistance, 123. 
Ottawa Indians, 42, 119. 

Pacific Ocean, discovery of, 17. 

Padilla, Father Juan de, 37. 

Paine, Thomas, 142. 

Pakenham, British general, 223. 

Palma, Thomas Estrada, first President of 
Cuba, 375. 

Panama Canal, 378-'379. SOS- 
Panama, Isthmus of, crossed by Balboa, 17. 

Panama, Republic of, 378. 

Panama-Pacific Exposition, 379. 

Pan-American Exposition, 377. 

Panic, of 1837, 248; of 1893, 364. 

Parcel post, 387. 

Paris, treaty of, ending Seven Years' War, 
117-118; ending War of Independence, 
168; ending Spanish War, 374. 

Parker, Alton B., candidate for the presi- 
dency, 384. 

Parliament, British, passes Stamp Act, 123; 
asserts right to legislate for the colonies, 
126; adopts new taxes, 127; defied by 
colonies, 128; seeks to punish Massa- 
chusetts, 132; undertakes to close Amer- 
ican ports, 140. 

Parties, political, rise of, 194; see names of 
parties. 

Patrons of Husbandry, 343. 

Patroons, 83. 

Pauncefote, British ambassador, 378. 

Payne-Aldrich Tariff, 386. 

Peace conference, 325. 

Pemberton, General, surrenders Vicksburg, 
312. 

Peninsular Campaign, 305-306. 

Penn, William, receives grant of Pennsyl- 

, vania, 89; government of, 90; receives 
Delaware, 91. 



Pennsylvania, origin of name, 89; is givtn 
to Penn, 89; boundary ^ dispute with 
Maryland, 91-93. 

People's Party, 364, 366. 

Pequot War, 76. 

Perez, Father Juan, 11. 

Perrault, founds Cape Breton Mission, 40. 

Perry, Commodore Matthew, visits Japan, 
276. 

Perry, Oliver Hazard, captures British fleet, 
2ig. 

Perry ville, battle of, 311. 

Philadelphia, occupied by British, 147 ; Con- 
stitutional Convention in, 178; Centennial 
Exposition in, 341. 

Philippine Commission, 375. 

Philippine Islands, reached by Magellan, 18; 
in Spanish War, 372; sold to United 
States, 374; under American rule, 375- 
376, 399- 

Phillips, Wendell, anti-slavery orator, 246. 

Phips, Sir William, governor of Massa- 
chusetts, 80. 

Pickens, Andrew, guerrilla leader, 161. 

Pickett's charge at Gettysburg, 320. 

Pierce, Franklin, chosen President, 283. 

Pike, Zebulon, explorer, 209. 

Pilgrims come to America, 68. 

Pinchot, Gifford, 387. 

Pinta, Columbus' ship, 11. 

Pious Fund, 380. 

Pitt, Fort, 115. 

Pitt, William, leader of British government, 
115, 122; praises American resistance, 126. 

Pittsburg Landing, battle of, 310-3H. 

Pius VI, Pope, 189. 

Piano Carpini, John of, see Carpini. 

Platform, political, beginning of, 244. 

Plattsburg, battle of, 221. 

Plymouth, founded, 68; growth of the 
colony, 69-70; joined to Massachusetts, 

79- 
Plymouth Company, chartered, 49; first 
expedition of, 65 ; receives new charter, 

65. 

Poe, Edgar Allan, 271. 

Polk, James K., chosen President, 255 ; por- 
trait, 255; and Oregon Question, 256-257; 
sends troops to Texas, 257 ; orders seizure 
of California, 259. 

Ponce de Leon, 18. 

Pope, Federal general, 307. 



INDEX 



457 



Population of the United States, 93-94, 184, 

264, 349- 
Populists, 363. 
Porto Rico, 371, 374. 
Portsmouth, N. H., peace of, 380-381. 
Postal savings banks, 387. 
Powderly, Terence V., 351. 
Preemption Act, 267. 
Presbyterians, 289. 

Prescott, patriot leader at Bunker Hill, 137. 
Presidental Succession Act, 361. 
Prices, Federal control of, 406. 
Primary nominating election, 391. 
Princeton, battle of, 146. 
Pring, Martin, visits New England coast, 46. 
Printing-press, first in English colonies, gg ; 

improvements in, 270. 
Privateers in the Revolution, 157. 
Progressive Party, 38g, 400. 
Progressive Republican League, 387. 
Prohibition of alcoholic liquors, 275, 413. 
"Prophet," brother of Tecumseh, 215. 
Providence, R. 1., founded, 75. 
Prussia, 404, 405. 
Public lands, ceded by states, 172-173; 

granted for education, 177-178. 
Pulaski, Polish nobleman, killed at siege of 

Savannah, 160. 
Pullman strike, 365. 
Punishments, in colonial times, 99-100. 
Pure food law, 385. 
Puritans, origin of, 67. 
Puritan migration, 72. 
Putnam, General Israel, at Brooklyn 

Heights, 145. 

Quakers, in Massachusetts, 76-77 ; in New 
Jersey, 89; in Pennsylvania, 8g. 

Quebec, founded, 25 ; captured by Wolfe, 
115-116; attacked by Arnold and Mont- 
gomery, 140. 

Quebec Act, 133. 

Queen Anne's War, 107-108. 

Queenstown, battle of, 217. 

Railroad, beginnings of, 236-237 ; rate 
discrimination, 343 ; state regulation of, 
343 ; extension of, in the West, 342 ; aids 
immigration, 34g-35o; Federal regulation 
of, 384 ; Eight-hour Day Law, 400. 

Raimbault; Indian missionary, 41, 42. 

Rale, Reverend Sebastian, 40. 



Raleigh, Sir Walter, 45. 

Reaper, invention of, 267-268. 

Recollects, 39. 

Reconstruction Acts, 333. 

Red Cross, 408. 

Referendum, 391. 

Regulating Act, 132. 

Reichstag, 404. 

Repressive Acts, 132. 

Republican Party, name given Jefferson's 
followers, 194; principles of, 195; anti- 
slavery party assumes name of, 285. 

Reservations, Indian, 274. 

Resumption Act, 359. 

Rhode Island, founded, 74-75 ; ratifies 
Ignited States Constitution, 181 ; revises 
its constitution, 267 ; woman suffrage in, 
391- 

Ribaut, founds colony at Port Royal Sound, 
24. 

Richmond, Va., capital of the Confederacy, 
297 ; evacuation of, 326. 

Roads Act, Federal aid, 400. 

Roanoke, Raleigh's colony, 45. 

"Rock of Chickamauga," 314. 

Rockefeller, John D., 354. 

Roosevelt, Theodore, Assistant Secretary 
of the Navy, 372; becomes President, 
377 ; portrait, 377 ; and Panama Canal, 
378, 37g; and international arbitration, 
379-380; and peace of Portsmouth, 380- 
381 ; sends fleet around the world, 382 ; 
and the trusts, 383 ; and the anthracite 
coal strike, 383 ; elected President, 384 ; 
and conservation movement, 385 ; candi- 
date for third term, 389; makes treaty 
with Santo Domingo, 394; in electoral 
campaign of 19 16, 400. 

Rosecrans, General William S., 311, 314. 

Ross, British general, burns cajjitol at 
Washington, 221; killed at Fort McHenry, 
222. 

"Rough Riders," 377. 

Russia, withdraws claim to American terri- 
tory, 235; sells Alaska, 334; and peace 
of Portsmouth, 381 ; in the Great War, 
396 ; Czar of, overthrown, 405 ; breakdown 
of, 408, 409. 

Sacajawea, Indian woman, 208. 
Sagard, Gabriel, historian of Recollect 
missions, 40. 



458 



INDEX 



St. Clement's Island, site of first Mass in 
Maryland, 59. 

St. Leger, driven from Fort Stanwix, 148. 

St. Mary's, Md., site of first settlement in 
Maryland, 59. 

Salem, Mass., founded, 70-71; witchcraft 
delusion in, 79-80. 

Salvation Army, 408. 

Sampson, American admiral, 373. 

San Francisco, exposition at, 379; and 
Japanese pupils, 381. 

San Juan Hill, battle of, 374. 

San Salvador, 12. 

Santa Anna, Mexican general, 259. 

Santa Maria, Columbus' ship, 11, 12. 

Santiago, Cuba, blockade of, 372-374- 

Santo Domingo, republic of, 394. 

Saratoga, scene of Burgoyne's surrender, 148. 

Savannah, first steamboat to cross 
Atlantic, 210. 

Savannah, Ga., in Revolution, 160, 166; 
Sherman reaches, 318. 

Schurz, Carl, 357. 

Scott, General Winfield, captures Vera Cruz, 
259; captures Mexico City, 260; por- 
trait, 260; candidate for President, 282; 
in Civil War, 298, 300. 

Scrooby, 67. 

Sea power, 106-107, 117. 

Secession, threatened, 286, 291 ; accom- 
plished, 291-292, 296. 

Sedition Law, 201. 

Segura, Indian missionary, 38. 

Seminole Indians, 30, 274. 

Seneca Indians, 30, 155. 

Separatists, origin of, 67. 

Serapis, surrenders to John Paul Jones, 

159- 

Serbia, in Great War, 396. 

Serra, Father Junipero, founds CaUfornia 
mission, 261; portrait, 261. 

Seven Days' Battles, 306. 

Seven Years' War, 114. 

Seward, WilHam H., on the "irrepressible 
conflict," 290; shot, 327; and Alaskan 
purchase, 334. 

Sewing machine, invention of, 269. 

Seymour, Horatio, candidate for the pres- 
idency, m. 

Shafter, General William, in Cuba, 373. 

Shays, Daniel, 175. 

Shays' Rebellion, 175. 



Shenandoah Campaign, 324. 

Sheridan, General Philip, in the Shenandoah 
Valley, 324; at Appomattox, 326; on 
Me-xican border, 334 ; and Indian wars, 
345- 

Sherman, General W. T., at Chattanooga, 
314,315; portrait, 316; reaches Atlanta, 
316; his march to the sea, 317-318; re- 
ceives Johnston's surrender, 327. 

Sherman Anti-trust Act, 354-355, 390. 

Sherman Silver Purchase Act, 363 ; repealed, 
365. 

Shiloh, battle of, 311. 

Shipbuilding in the Great War, 407. 

Shirley, governor of Massachusetts, 108, 
112. 

Silver Purcha<se Act, 363, 365. 

Singer, Isaac, 269. 

Sioux Indians, 105, 345. 

Sirius, ocean steamship, 270. 

Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament for Indian 
and Colored People, 347. 

Sitting Bull, 345. 

Six Nations' Confederacy, 30. 

Sixth Massachusetts Regiment, 298. 

Sixty-ninth New York Regiment, 298. 

Skaguay, Alaska, 380. 

Sketch Book, 226. 

Slavery, introduced into Virginia, 53-54; 
grows rapidly in South Carolina, 62 ; in 
Northwest Territory, 177; in the Con- 
stitution, 179; at end of eighteenth cen- 
tury, 187; and the cotton-gin, 187-188; 
opposed in the North, 230-231; exten- 
sion of, after Mexican War, 278 ; abolished, 
328. 

Slidell, John, 301, 302. 

Smith, Captain John, portrait, 51; leader 
of Jamestown colony, 51; makes map of 
New England, 65. 

Smith, Joseph, founds Mormonism, 273. 

"Sons of Liberty," 125. 

Socialists, popular vote of in 1912, 390; 
support President Wilson, 401. 

South Carolina, established, 62 ; slavery in, 
62; secedes, 291-292. 

South Dakota admitted, 347; woman suf- 
frage in, 391. 

Southern Pacific Railroad, 342. 

Spain, destroys Moorish power, 10; in 
America, 11-23; in French and Indian 
War, 1 1 7-1 18; makes loans to America, 



INDEX 



459 



151; gives naval aid, 160; treaty with, 
185, 206; cedes Florida, 233; war with, 

371-374- 
Spanish Succession, War of, 107. 
Spanish War, 371-374 
Specie Circular, 248. 
Specie payments, resumed, 359. 
Spoils System, 241, 336. 
Spottsylvania Court House, battle of, 323. 
The Spy, 226. 
Stamp Act, passed, 123; opposition to, 124- 

125 ; repeal of, 126. 
Stamp Act Congress, 125-126. 
Standard Oil Company, 354. 
Stanton, Secretary of War, 304, 2)^:^. 
Stanwix, Fort, 148. 
Stark, John, captures British force at 

Bennington, 148. 
"Star-Spangled Banner," composed by 

F. S. Key, 222. 
"Starving time," at Jamestown, 51. 
Steamboat, invention of, 209. 
Stephens, Alexander, 292. 
Stephenson, George, 236. 
Steuben, Baron von, drills American forces, 

166; portrait, 166. 
Stevens, Thaddeus, 332. 
Stoddert, Benjamin, first Secretary of the 

Navy, 199. 
Stone, Captain WiUiam, governor of Mary- 
land, 60. 
Stowe, Mrs. Harriet Beecher, 283. 
Strikes, Pullman, 365 ; in anthracite coal 

fields, 383. 
Stuyvesant, Peter, Dutch governor, 84 ; 

surrenders New Amsterdam to English, 

86; portrait, 84. 
Submarine warfare, German, 398, 401. 
Sullivan, American general, defeats Tories in 

New York, 155. 
Sulpicians, 40, 106, 190. 
Sumner, United States Senator, 332. 
Sumter, Fort, attacked, 294-296. 
Sumter, Thomas, guerrilla leader, 161. 
Sun, New York newspaper, 271. 
Supreme Court of the United States, 179. 

Taft, W. H., heads Philippine Commission, 
375 ; chosen President, 386; portrait, 
386 ; and Republican insurgents, 387 ; 
defeated for reelection, 389. 

Taney, Roger B., 286. 



Tariff, under the Confederation, 174, 175, 
176; in the Constitution, 179; during 
Washington's presidency, 193, 194; of 
1816, 225; of 1828, 240; of 1833, 245; 
in Civil War, 322; McKinley, 363; 
Dingley, 367 ; Payne-Aldrich, 386 ; Under- 
wood, 390. 

Tariff Commission, 399. 

Tarleton, British colonel, defeats patriot 
force at Waxhaw, 161 ; defeated at Cow- 
pens, 164. 

Taxation, in the colonies, 118, 123, 124, 125, 
126, 127, 130; under the Confederation, 
174, 175, 176; in the Constitution, 179; 
Hamilton's, 193, 195; on incomes, 388, 
390; in the Great War, 39Q, 407, 413; 
see also Tariff. 

Taylor, General Zachary, leads American 
forces into Texas, 257 ; defeats Mexicans, 
259; chosen President, 279-280; por- 
trait, 280; death of, 282. 

Tea, tax on, 130. 

Tecumseh, Indian leader, 215; killed in 
battle, 219. 

Telegraph, invention of electric, 269 ; ocean, 
270. 

Temperance reform, 275. 

Tennessee, admitted, 186; secedes, 296; in 
reconstruction period, 552— T,a. 

Texas, independence of, 253-254; annexation 
of, 254-255; and slavery question, 255; ad- 
mitted, 265 ; secedes, 292 ; cotton in, 348. 

Thames, battle of, 219. 

Thanatopsis, 226. 

Thomas, General George, "the Rock of 
Chickamauga," 314; defeats Hood at 
Nashville, 317. 

Thury, Reverend Louis, 40. 

Ticonderoga, Fort, taken by Ethan Allen, 
139; taken by Burgoyne, 147. 

Tilden, Samuel J., 338, 339. 

Tippecanoe, battle of, 215. 

Tobacco, cultivated by Indians, 34; intro- 
duced into England, 45; enriches Vir- 
ginia, Si. 

Toleration Act in Maryland, 59, 61. 

Toombs of Georgia, 281. 

"Tories" give aid to British, 154, 155. 

Toscanelli, on the earth's size, 9. 

Trade routes between Europe and Asia, 3. 

Travel, in early days of the republic, i86; 
railroad, 236-237. 



460 



INDEX 



Treaties, of St. Germain, 40; of Utrecht, 
108; of Aix-la-Chapelle, 109; of Paris, 
1763, 117-118; of Paris, 1783, 168; with 
Spain, 185; of Ghent, 223-224; Webster- 
Ashburton, 253 ; settling Oregon Ques- 
tion, 257; of Guadalupe-Hidalgo, 260; 
with Japan, 276; Clayton-Bulwer, 262, 
378; of Washington, 337; of Paris, 
1898, 374; of Portsmouth, 380-381; 
with Indians, see Indians. 

Trent Affair, 301-302. 

Trenton, battle of, 146. 

Tribune, newspaper, 271, 293. 

Tripoli declares war on United States, 205. 

Trusts, 342, 3S4 ; Anti-trust Act, 354-355 ; 
regulation of, 383, 390. 

Turkey, defeat of, 411. 

Tuskegee Institute, 349. 

Tyler, John, elected Vice-President, 250; 
portrait, 252 ; succeeds to presidency, 252 ; 
quarrels with Whigs, 252; urges annexa- 
tion of Texas, 254. 

Unck Tom's Cabin, 283. 

"Underground Railroad," 246, 283. 

Underwood Tariff, 390. 

Union Pacific Railroad, 342. 

Union Party, 325. 

Unions, labor, 350-351- 

Unitarians, 189. 

United States, frigate, 218. 

United States, independence of, 142-143 ; 
under Articles of Confederation, 172- 
180; adopts Constitution, 180-18 1. 

United States Public Health Service, 392. 

Utah, admitted, 347 ; grants woman suffrage, 
390. 

Utrecht, treaty of, 108. 

Valley Forge, 152-153. 

Van Buren, Martin, chosen Vice-President, 
243 ; becomes President, 247 ; and sub- 
treasury plan, 249 ; defeated by Harrison, 
250; establishes ten-hour day in navy 
yards, 265 ; nominated for President by 
Free Soil Party, 280. 

Van Rensselaer, General Stephen, 217. 

Vasco da Gama, 8. 

Venezuelan boundary question, 369. 

Vera Cruz, capture of, 259, 393. 

Vermont, admitted, 186. 

Verrazano, 33. 



Vespucci, Amerigo, 16. 

Veto power in colonial times, 121-122. 

Vicksburg, siege of, 312. 

Villa, Mexican revolutionist, 393, 394. 

Vincennes, Fort, 156-157. 

Vinland, 2. 

Virgin Islands, purchase of, 395. 

Virginia, first charter of, 49; settlement, 
50-52; charter of 1609, 52; beginning of 
self-government in, 54 ; as a royal prov- 
ince, 55 ; protests against Port Bill, 133 ; 
ratifies Constitution of the United States, 
181 ; secedes, 296. 

Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions, 201. 

Voting, right of, extended, 266. 

Wade-Davis Bill, 330. 

Waldseemueller, Martin, 16, 17. 

War of 181 2, 213-224. 
"War Hawks," 215. 

War Savings Stamps, 407. 

Washington, Augustine, no. 

Washington, Booker T., 349. 

Washington, George, at Fort Necessity, in; 
at Braddock's defeat, 113; at capture of 
Fort Duquesne, 115; named commander- 
in-chief, 136; compels evacuation of 
Boston, 139; retreats through New Jersey, 
145; success of, at Trenton and Princeton, 
145-146; at Morristown, 146; at Valley 
Forge, 152 ; had "almost ceased to hope," 
162; directs capture of Yorktown, 167; 
resigns command, 1 70 ; presides over 
Constitutional Convention, 178; por- 
trait, 178; first President of United 
States, 181; opposes slavery, 187; 
replies to address of Catholics, 190; estab- 
lishes President's Cabinet, 192 ; neutral 
in French War, 195-196; opposes war 
with England, 197; retires to private 
life, 198; death of, 202. 

Washington, admitted, 347 ; adopts woman 
suffrage, 391. 

Washington, D. C, capital of United States, 
205; captured by British, 221 ; treaty of, 
337- 

Washington, Lawrence, no. 

Wasp, American sloop, 218. 

Waxhaw, battle of, 161. 

Wayne, General Anthony, captures Stony 
Point, 154; subdues Indians, 185-186. 

Weaver, J. B., candidate for President, 363. 



d 



INDEX 



461 



Webster, Daniel, replies to Hayne, 242 ; 

Secretary of State, 252; and Maine 

boundary dispute, 253 ; and Compromise 

of 1850, 282. 
Webster-Ashburton treaty, 253. 
Webster-Hayne debate, 241. 
Weed, Thurlow, 303. 
West Virginia, admitted, 2g6. 
Western land claims, 133; ceded by states, 

172-173- 
Westward movement, 21C3-211, 228. 
Weymouth, George, visits New England 

coast, 46. 
Whigs, beginnings of, 240, 244. 
Whisky Rebellion, 195. 
White, Father, compiles Indian grammar 

and dictionary, 59; sent to England in 

chains, 60. 
White, John, founder of Massachusetts 

Company, 70. 
White, John, governor of Roanoke colony, 

46. 
White House Conference, 385. 
Whitney, Eli, inventor of the cotton-gin, 187. 
Whittier, John Greenleaf, 246, 271. 
Wilderness, battle of, 323. 
Wilderness Road, 186. 
Wilkes, Captain Charles, in command of the 

Trent, 302. 
William III grants charter to Massachusetts, 

79- 
William of Rubruck, 6. 
Williams, Roger, founds Rhode Island, 74-75 
Wilmot, David, 279. 



Wilmot Proviso, 278-279. 

Wilson, Woodrow, chosen President, 389; 
portrait, 389; reverses old custom, 390; 
Latin-American policy of, 395 ; proclaims 
American neutrality, 396; protests Brit- 
ish blockade, 397 ; protests German sub- 
marine warfare, 398; reelection of, 400; 
asks European belligerents for peace terms, 
401 ; breaks diplomatic relations with 
Germany, 401 ; asks for declaration of war, 
402 ; outlines American war purposes, 403 ; 
bis "fourteen points," 409; announces 
armistice, 412; goes to peace conference, 
413- 

Winchester, battle of, 306, 324. 

Winthrop, John, leads expedition to Massa- 
chusetts, 71 ; portrait, 71. 

Wirt, William, candidate of Anti-masonic 
Party, 244. 

Wisconsin, admitted, 265. 

Witchcraft, in colonies, 79-80. 

Wolfe, General James, captures Quebec, 
115-116. 

Woman suffrage, 390-391. 

Workmen's Compensation Act, 400. 

Wyoming, admitted, 347 ; grants woman 
suffrage, 390. 

Yeardley, Sir George, governor of Virginia, 

54- 
York, Ontario, 221. 
Yorktown, 167-168. 

Young Men's Christian Association, 408. 
Young Men's Hebrew Association, 408. 



Printed in the United Statei of Americ* 



